Gone Too Long
by RavenclawGenius
Summary: HGDM: A month of torture while confined to the solitude of Lucius Malfoy's dungeons would leave anyone wounded, Hermione included. Hiatus.
1. Nausea

Looks like I'm back. I know I have a tendency to only finish the one-shots, and I have a tendency to promise I won't let that happen, so I won't do that again. I'll just promise that I'll do my best to not lose track of the story, and to keep my focus on it. I've got about eight pages on the next chapter, so the chapters will be longer than this. This is set up to show you that the story is going to deserve its M rating. **There will be clear descriptions of violence, vague mentions of rape, foul language, and potentially graphic sex scenes by the end of the story.** I hope you enjoy; please review. : )

* * *

Hermione ground her teeth together in pain. Had she ever felt anything this painful? Had death ever seemed so attainable to her before? She couldn't remember. She couldn't think. She couldn't move. She just jerked on the floor, moaning in agony, refusing to cry out or beg.

"You're strong," Lucius grinned, crouching down on the floor beside her, fisting a handful of her hair and heaving her head around to look at him. "Not to worry. I will break you, you cumbersome little Gryffindor. You'll be singing at my command when I'm finished with you."

He flicked his wand once, released her from the clutches of the Cruciatus curse, and strolled in a circle around her. She focused on the tapping of his boots, counted them, tried to maintain some mental function to keep herself from insanity.

How much longer? How much longer did she have to wait this out? She hurt. She was tired.

Breaths came to her in gasps, movements only came with concentrated effort and excruciating, burning pain in her muscles, her limbs, any body part that she could think to move. It just hurt.

How many days? At least a week, she was sure it had been at least that long. Malfoy had told her so. She couldn't see the sun rise, couldn't watch it sink over the horizon – couldn't monitor the time at all.

_Too long_, she decided. _It's been too long._

God, she didn't know how much longer she could stand it. She was reluctant to admit it, too prideful to give in, but he _was _breaking her. She would never talk, wouldn't ever betray Harry or the Order that way. But he was breaking her mind. She couldn't think properly, had trouble focusing on things other than the pain. It had been easier than this the first few days, she remembered. She had been able to focus on the dragonhide boots Malfoy wore, had been able to count the number of tiles on the floor as she writhed.

Now there was just pain.

She always remembered to count afterward. She knew she could be suffering brain damage. It was best to avoid thinking about it, but she knew it was a possibility.

So she counted the taps of his boots against the stone tiles. _Six. Seven. Eight. _Slower, now. _Nine._ He took another step. Close, she noted. He was close. Shit. She lost count. _Eleven? Or was it twelve?_

Pain.

An expensive boot crashed into her stomach. She coughed as her body shifted from the force of the kick, curled into fetal position to relieve the pain.

"Is it worth it, Granger?" Lucius sounded gleeful, pleasured, and deadly. "Is Potter really worth all this? There are better ways we could use you, Granger. You wouldn't have to die."

_Yet._ It hung in the air silently, but she could feel it hovering.

"It would be less painful," Malfoy amended. "Potter is going to die, Granger. He's going to die, and you're going to tell us how to kill him."

_No I'm not._

She couldn't speak. Her body hurt, her lungs had no air, her jaw refused to move. She felt the response strongly in her heart, ached to spit in his face.

_Go to hell._

"Not yet?" His voice was smooth and silky, very sophisticated. She hated it. It was arrogant, self-assured, pompous, and told her how very confident he felt about this situation, her situation. "Well, we'll see, Granger."

The silver blade flicked across her skin delicately, intimidating and daunting her. She feared the knife. It hurt hundreds and thousands of times less than the Cruciatus, but it was hundreds and thousands of times more invasive.

The knife was unrelenting. Once started, it kept moving across her body. The metal was cold against her skin, hovered over its previous scars and wounds, and gracefully drew lines over her arms, her legs, her stomach, and finally her breasts. The heated blood was a sharp contrast to her cold body.

The Cruciatus was infinitely better.

She counted the number of cuts. _Sixteen. _It pressed against her thigh, and she bit her cheek as it throbbed. _Seventeen. _Her hip now, and she heaved out a breath. _Eighteen._ The cold blade touched her stomach, digging in deeply. _Pain. _She felt the blood trickle over her sides, lost count of the next few slashes and succumbed to the suffering.

_Twenty-two._ Some part of her mind hinted at the number, but she didn't have the focus to find out how many counts she had missed, if the number was accurate. It was the last number before she saw the colors, the blues, oranges, reds, purples, the hues all clustered behind her eyelids, results of squeezing them together too tightly.

She was tired.

The pain flickered into pricks, almost as if her body had lost circulation, the way your foot will if you've sat on it for a while, or kept your legs crossed too long, and it falls asleep.

Pleasant.

**/**x**\**

Draco watched his father work, cringing violently with each dig into Granger's skin.

He couldn't do it. His stomach heaved, twisted, whirled in unseemly directions. _God._ It was sick and disturbing, and Merlin knew what else.

Why had they brought him here? Why? He wouldn't do it. He couldn't do it.

Lucius wanted him to learn, wanted him to see what they were for, wanted him to see what they did with muggleborns who didn't obey. Draco wanted none of it. He wouldn't watch this, refused to.

He couldn't turn away.

She didn't speak. Draco wondered if she was still able to, and was sickened by the thought.

How long had she been here? How long had they been doing this to her?

He saw scars on her skin, past encounters with the sharp blade that belonged to his father. He saw dried blood caked over her body, her naked body, degrading her, defiling her, even the new nicks tallied on her face.

_God. Don't touch her._

This was wrong. It was insane, repulsing, repugnant, and absolutely vile.

He felt bile rise in his throat, forced it away, forced it down. It wouldn't do. His father would see, would mock his weak stomach.

Draco watched through the glass. His father's hands were all over her, touching her, squeezing her breasts, pulling her hair, torturing her. She was fucking unconscious, couldn't even scream for help that she knew would never come. What the fuck was _wrong_ with him?

He couldn't stop the nausea, couldn't force it away a second time. What was he _doing_? He wouldn't rape her, Draco convinced himself. He thought she was lower than scum, he wouldn't taint himself that way.

But he did. Draco heaved up the remainder of his breakfast, turned away, refused to watch his father force himself onto her, and leaned against the wall. Thank _God_ he couldn't hear, thank _God_.

He wouldn't let this happen again, couldn't watch it, couldn't know of it and do nothing. This would not happen again. Not to anyone, not to her. Not to her. She was the fucking harbinger of good, of innocence.

Lucius Malfoy had ruined her. She would never be the same. _He_ would never be the same.

No. This would not happen again.


	2. Salvation

Draco never looked at his mother, faked neutrality when his father asked how he _"enjoyed the show"_, locked himself in his room straight away.

He vowed that he would go through with this, whether it brought him pain or not. _God_, after what he'd just watched, he could deal with a little pain. Hell, he could deal with a lot of pain. It would never compare to how she must have felt, to how disgusted he felt watching her.

He meticulously gathered his cloak, threw it over his shoulders. He couldn't think. He never wanted to think again, never wanted to relive what he'd seen, never wanted to see Granger's face twisted in agony again, never wished to look at his father for the rest of his existence. He would be content with that.

Draco didn't look at himself in the mirror. He felt how extraordinarily pale he was, knew he looked ill. He didn't care.

The pot of floo powder rested in a pot on the mantle. Draco picked his wand up from the bed, tucked it up his sleeve and into a holster. He took a handful of the glistening silver powder, tossed it into the flames. The name he called out was one he relied on, one he trusted, one he knew could help. Jesus, if he couldn't help, he didn't know who the hell could.

His visits to Snape were always planned. He knew it would shock his godfather when he stumbled out of the fireplace, knew his appearance would concern him. It should.

Draco tumbled away from the green flames, felt himself being steadied as Snape took his arm and hastened him toward the couch. "Draco? What happened?"

"Granger," Draco shook his head, reluctant to go through the evening, resistant to tell Snape what he'd seen, how he hadn't been able to help.

He did it anyway.

Snape acted quickly. A floo call to Dumbledore, from Dumbledore to the MLE office at the Ministry. They'd been looking for Granger for almost a month now. A _month_ she'd been stuck in a cell in the middle of fucking nowhere with only his father for company.

"Draco, follow me," Snape was curt. He wouldn't deal with Draco's emotions until the situation had been properly handled, until Granger was out and being healed. Right now he needed facts, and Draco could provide them.

As long as he stayed away from emotions, stuck to facts, he would be alright. Where was the dungeon? How do you get there? Where are all possible escapes? Did Hermione look alive? Those he could handle.

He couldn't handle the in-depth questions. What the fuck did he do to her? How beat up did she look? Did she look mentally stable? No, those answers were too foul, too close to tears and anger for him to approach.

Snape didn't ask those questions.

"Get her out," Draco said blankly. "_God_, Severus, get her _out_."

**/**x**\**

Lights.

Bright, painful lights rested on the ceiling above her.

Odd. When did he put lights here?

She couldn't keep her eyes open. The new lights hurt her head. It had been too dark for too long. Lights would be nice, she thought. She just needed to open her eyes.

She forced them open again, and tried to move. She flinched at a sound to her right, curled into the little ball that she had fallen into so many times. It hurt less this way. Not a lot less, but less.

The fresh cuts tore as she moved around, but she didn't care. She didn't want to see him. Not Malfoy again.

"Miss Granger? Miss Granger? Can you hear me?"

Hermione frowned. Lights, and a new voice? No, he wouldn't bring guests. She'd been moved. Where was she?

She looked to her left and then to her right, frantically. People. God, so many people. She couldn't breathe, couldn't understand.

"Everybody out! Get the press out!"

Press? She was so confused.

_Where am I?_ She thought, and even to herself she sounded panicked. _He's breaking me. He's breaking me._

"Miss Granger, I need you to take a deep breath for me. Really deep. Can you do that?"

"It hurts," she whimpered, her voice was broken. It was cracked, weak, and unused. "It hurts."

"Okay," the voice murmured softly, "just take it slow."

The voice put a hand on her shoulder. She tensed, a sob broke from her throat.

"Don't touch me! Don't touch me! Get off!" It didn't sound like her. It sounded scared, hysterical, and she didn't like it.

But she didn't want to be touched, either.

"I'm sorry. I won't touch you again. Just take breaths for me, Miss Granger," the voice hastily pulled the hands away from her.

Hermione warily did as she was instructed, took small breaths. They came too fast, but it didn't hurt as much. She pulled her head away from her chest, where she usually curled it when she retreated into the fetal position.

The voice coached her on her breathing, and Hermione turned toward it.

She was in white. And it was a she. That made her feel a little better. Death Eaters didn't wear white, and women weren't quite as frightening.

"Who are you?" Hermione croaked, the effort taking a breath away from her lungs.

"My name is Ruby Fisher. I'm your healer," she said gently.

Healer. Why had he called a healer for her? He didn't want her dead? Could have fooled her, but no, she thought, he wanted information on Harry. No, he didn't want her dead. But where was he? Where was Malfoy? Was he coming back? She hoped not. She didn't want to see him.

"Miss Granger, I need to give you a potion. Can I adjust your IV?"

IV? Did wizards use IVs? She couldn't remember. Was there one in her arm? She hadn't noticed. She didn't want the healer to touch her again, but she didn't want to argue.

She nodded carefully, bracing herself. Her limbs protested violently to the feel of hands, but she clenched her hands into fists and fought the urge to push the healer away. "Thank you Miss Granger. I'll have to give you a new potion every six hours. I'll touch you as minimally as possible."

Hermione nodded again, her voice tired. "Can I sleep?"

"Of course. I'll check on you in a little bit."

**/**x**\**

Draco's head throbbed, his body protested. Hell, the Weasleys protested, Potter protested. They didn't want him here. They didn't want him anywhere _near_ here.

Tough shit.

It was because of him that she'd been found. They'd never have looked for her in the rundown building his father had locked her in, never have even bothered thinking of it.

"Why the hell are you here?" Weasley snarled viciously, restrained from attacking by his twin brothers. "Haven't you done enough to her?"

What? _What did the fucking prick just say?_ Hadn't _he_ done enough to her? Oh, no. No, no, no. Draco's nausea bit at his throat violently, and he instead focused on the fury, the anger. He didn't know what he was doing, hadn't thought about what he planned to do. The rage powered him, urged him.

Ron Weasley was pressed against the wall, Draco's arm pressed against his throat.

"You fucking listen to me, Weasley, because I'll only listen to this accusation once. I never _touched_ her. I don't like you, and I sure as _hell_ don't like Potter, but don't you _dare_ charge me for whatever the fuck my father did to _her_, do you hear me? I didn't bloody touch her, I could hardly _watch_ what was being done to her. My father is fucking sick, Weasley, but I did _nothing_," Draco's body shook aggressively as he snarled his claim in the redhead's face.

"Draco," that was Snape's voice. Draco hardly recognized it. The hand that touched his arm wrenched him away from Ronald Weasley's throat.

"Draco," Snape's voice was sharper the second time, forceful as he tugged the blonde away from the trembling body against the wall. Draco heaved several deep breaths in, released slowly, and fell back onto the couch in the waiting room. He wasn't leaving. Fuck Weasley.

**/**x**\**

White.

She hadn't noticed that before, only the lights. It was very bright in this room. In fact, her head hurt. More than usual. She tried to count the number of white things in the room. The tiles on the floor, her bed, her bed sheets, her nightstand, the ceiling, the walls, the nurse's uniform, the door, and was she even sure this was still Malfoy's domain? It felt similar to a hospital, the hospital wing at Hogwarts, maybe St. Mungo's, she couldn't be sure.

"Oh, you're awake," Ruby smiled gently. "How do you feel?"

Hermione frowned, wary of her unknown surroundings, wary of this person she barely knew and was injecting potions into her system, wary of the lights and the whiteness.

"Where am I? Where's Malfoy? Why am I here? Who are you?" She fired the questions off quickly, not caring how panicked she sounded. Damn right she was afraid, he'd given her every reason to be.

Ruby tried not to feel pity, tried to place herself in a neutral position. But damn it, the girl had scars all over her body, was afraid, terrified of even the gentlest of touches, took to the fetal position whenever she felt the slightest surges of fear, hadn't eaten properly in a month and was unbearably skinny. She was hard to watch, even more difficult to heal. Her body had been used, marked for a play thing of sadistic pleasure, violently penetrated. Her bones had started to wear away, results left by concentrated use of the Cruciatus curse, and she could think of no possible way that Lucius Malfoy could have hurt the girl more.

"You're at St. Mungo's. Malfoy is in Azkaban, you're here because you're severely injured, and because his son revealed your whereabouts. I'm your healer," Ruby spoke carefully, slowly, convincing Hermione that it was truth, not fiction; that she was safe now, rescued from Malfoy's cold cellar, on her way to recovery.

Free.

God, she was free. How long had she gone on without hope of being recovered? She knew she'd had an abundance of faith in her friends, her family at the start of her stay with Malfoy, what had happened to it?

_He broke it._

The realization tore at her, made her realize how weak she really was, how breakable. She felt a whirlwind of self-disgust curl through her, washing away the relief to be safe, to be away from him.

How had he torn through her walls so quickly, so effectively? No. She didn't want to remember that, she couldn't stand to relive the knives, the torture, the rape, the bloody _pain_ he'd installed inside of her.

She _hated_ him. She hated him for breaking her, for using her, for the abuse he'd inflicted on her, for taking her family away, for killing her heart – because she was sure that it had died, she was sure that he had ripped it away from her and mauled it until it no longer beat properly, and had given it back only so that she could feel its brokenness. Oh yes, she _hated_ Lucius Malfoy with every fiber of her broken, battered, bruised being.

Only, she couldn't tell if she hated him more than she hated herself for letting it happen, for letting him hurt her, for allowing him to crush her walls of defense and the strengthened foundations she had built to support them.

"How long was I gone?" Hermione suddenly realized that she had no idea, no clue how long she had been trapped in that ghastly place.

_Too long_, Ruby wanted to reply. _Too bleeding long._

"A month and some days," she answered instead, reluctantly admitting that 'too long' was not a satisfactory response, not from anyone, but particularly from someone the girl did not know.

A _month_? God. _God!_ It was no wonder she ached, no wonder she felt so broken, no wonder every bone in her body felt liable to snap with even the smallest movement. No fucking wonder. A whole _month_?

It felt that long, probably longer, but she couldn't remember how long she'd estimated, what conclusion she'd come to when she'd asked herself the same question, locked in the grimy cell. How long ago was that?

"How long have I been here?" Her voice still sounded wary, felt scratchy and hoarse, but she needed her questions answered, needed to know what had happened and where she was.

"Just a day," Ruby said quietly. The girl looked stricken, completely aghast, and considerably paler than she'd been moments before. "You should rest," she said.

Hermione curled up, turned on her side, away from the potion bag on her left, away from the healer, eyes slipping shut hesitantly. She didn't like not seeing, didn't like not knowing where the healer was, and certainly didn't like how many people were in this building, how many people had been in her room the last time she'd come to. She forced her eyes shut, kept them that way, and remembered lying still for a very long time before falling asleep.

She couldn't remember the last time she'd slept. When she'd been with Malfoy, she'd only crept in and out of consciousness, and she didn't think that counted as sleep or rest. She'd been too scared to sleep, too nervous to think what he'd do to her if she did, too frightened of him to sleep properly. She still couldn't shake the feeling of his company, was afraid to believe that he couldn't find her here.

A whimper escaped Hermione's throat as she jerked away from the sensation of touch that rumbled up her arm. Breathing heavily through her nose, proud to be breathing still at all, eyes clenched together.

She was crouched together again; she wondered if she ever moved from that position while she slept, if she'd grown that accustomed to the pain, to the fear, to the anticipation of his attacks to the point where she could no longer sleep comfortably in any other position without his presence haunting her.

"Miss Granger," a voice called to her, sounded surprised, but she didn't care.

"Don't touch me!" She cried out, tears stinging the insides of her eyes. "Please," she begged, angry with herself for giving in, for giving him what he wanted, for amusing his sick mind with her pleas. "Get off," she hardly recognized her voice, hardly acknowledged the whine that tainted it, so focused she was on removing the hand from her body.

_Not again_, she thought desperately, _don't touch me again. _

"Hermione!"

"Stop," she said again, that same raspy decibel assailing her ears. She winced at the sound, ashamed of herself for giving into him, for swelling his ego, his confidence. Oh, she would regret this, she knew she would. He would get high off of her protests, torture her until she begged some more, for his own amusement, for his own disgusting pleasure.

The hand flew away from her person, stopped touching her, obeying her request. A sigh of relief flooded from Hermione's lips, confusion settled in her mind. He listened? No. No, that wasn't right. He never listened, not once, not to her. _Never_ to her.

"Hermione, please," the voice sounded almost as anxious as she felt, but she didn't pay attention to that. She was so confused, so lost.

"Hermione," said another voice.

That one she remembered, that one was okay, she guessed, because she hadn't hurt her and listened when she asked her not to touch her. Ruby was healing her.

She suddenly felt very foolish for being frightened, foolish for thinking that Malfoy was trying to hurt her again. How could she help it? How could she rid herself of the feeling of his violating hands, of the insidious knife making patterns across her skin, of the tremors in her bones that began to quiver any time she got nervous or scared because he'd tortured her one too many times with the Cruciatus curse?

"Hermione, it's Ruby," she said carefully.

Although Hermione had known that Ruby's voice was the one she had heard, it did not stop a small bubble of security from forming in her chest. It also did not hurt to be reminded again that she was at the hospital, that she was safe, away from Malfoy and his cursed dungeon, away from harm.

Slowly, carefully and cautiously, Hermione unfurled her stomach from her thighs, her chest from her knees, and finally forced her head toward the kindly healer.

Hermione may not have noticed that tears that leaked from her eyes, or perhaps refused to acknowledge them, but Ruby noticed, noticed and couldn't help but let it pull at her heartstrings. She had been a healer for ten years, was nearing thirty-two, and had never once seen a patient that broke her heart this way, not this wretchedly, not quite this painful to look at, and so help her if she didn't have the urge to hug the girl, to assuage the aches and fear that she felt.

"Why do you keep touching me?" Hermione whispered.

"I didn't. You have a visitor," Ruby explained soothingly. "I have to adjust your potions again, but I won't have to touch you. Is that alright?"

Hermione nodded silently, watched her slow, meticulous movements as she bustled around at her bedside, and when she was finished, Hermione turned to her left, to the side where her back was turned, the side where the hand had approached her from.

"Professor McGonagall," Hermione winced, displeased with her own reaction to the witch's touch, displeased with the woman's tears, but mostly displeased with the look of utter horror slathered across her face.

She watched as her teacher roughly tried to pull herself together, frowned as she noted that it hadn't worked properly, immediately felt a wave of guilt crash into her body. "I'm sorry," she murmured weakly. "I – I didn't know you… I didn't mean to…" she couldn't finish, reluctant to admit her own weakness, to confess how terrified a single hand had made her, to disclose what she'd thought was about to happen to her.

"Quite alright," McGonagall breathed, her thick brogue stronger than usual, because of sadness, tears, and an overwhelming concern. "Healer Fisher felt that it might be good to bring in someone you were familiar with. I'll divulge that I – I quite wanted to see you."

Never had Hermione felt so disgusted with herself, never quite so guilty, but the look on McGonagall's face, the stutter in her words, the worry that inevitably conveyed itself when the professor spoke tore at Hermione's heart, and she knew she'd be hard pressed to find another way to make someone feel quite so awful as her professor felt now.

_Way to go, Granger,_ she thought sullenly.

"Thank you, Professor," she paused, despite her remorse for hurting the woman, wary to open herself to the pain, forced herself to roll onto her back with immeasurable amounts of pain engulfing her, the deepest parts of her bones, the darkest recesses of her body, the surface of her skin as some of the knife wounds reopened. "I appreciate you coming," she hissed through a wince, fastened her jaw shut, fought the urge to shriek, to make her pain verbal, to make it known.

_That,_ Hermione admonished herself, _would be absolutely no way to alleviate McGonagall's trepidation._

"Those potions should help with the pain," Ruby offered quietly, "but we can't heal all of the wounds. A lot of them are just too deep. We have some salves to keep them from scarring, but we can't do a lot for the ones that have already healed."

Hermione was familiar with the scars, had stared at them every day since they'd begun to appear. She wasn't sure she'd be able to tell the difference if they kept the more recent wounds from permanently marking her flesh, there were simply too many for twenty or so to matter.

She nodded anyway. "Thank you," she muttered.

Ruby smiled, turned, said, "I'll give the two of you a bit of privacy, then." She closed the door behind her, leaving a silent room, almost awkward, painful – but not the pain that Hermione was used to, not the physical pain.

"Miss Granger, what happened?" Professor McGonagall's eyes roamed over her face, down her neck, down her exposed arms, even her palms were mauled. "What did he do to you?"

Hermione stiffened, shook her head. Quietly, "I don't want to talk about that."

McGonagall nodded once, "Of course. I'm sorry. I – I shouldn't have asked. How rude of me."

Her body refused to relax, refused to be calmed by the apologies, even while she acknowledged that it was natural for the professor to be curious, natural for her to be concerned. She was touched that McGonagall cared, moved by the fact that she would care enough to come visit during her days off.

"You have every right to ask," Hermione murmured. Her voice, while a bit smoother due to some of the tea she'd been allowed to drink earlier, still caught when she thought of her days – weeks – in his dungeon. "I just – I can't answer those kinds of questions right now."

"As is _your_ right," McGonagall still sounded a bit ruffled, a bit shocked, but mostly worried, mostly concerned.

Hermione hated it.

"I don't feel the need to prolong this any longer than necessary, Miss Granger. It is not my wish to be cruel," she said carefully, "however I expect that Malfoy never for a moment let you forget that your parents passed away and – "

"They did not _pass away_," Hermione snapped, angry that after all this time, being reminded of her parents' deaths still got to her, still made her angry, still increased her hatred for the man who took their lives. "They were heartlessly murdered, Professor, right in front of me. A simply spell couldn't have done it," she mumbled sarcastically. "No. He stabbed them. Both of them. Right in the back, too. They didn't even see it coming."

Minerva's heart constricted a little tighter, for a little longer. She'd been prepared for this; she'd had a condolence speech planned, ready to be used, ready to appease a sobbing girl. But this? This was no girl, and she looked like she'd already shed one too many tears to even be capable of sobbing, her body looked too weak to handle it, and she could see the young woman's hands shaking even as she consciously tried to still them. What had Lucius Malfoy done to her prized Gryffindor? What had he done to turn her from the confident, steady girl that she had been into the trembling, hurting young woman before her? She looked much more broken than _anything_ Minerva could have prepared herself for.

Hermione's eyes slipped shut, she berated herself for hurting her again, for baffling her again, for giving her a look of pity that looked almost foreign on the old professor's countenance. "Forgive me. It seems I'm a little bitter."

And just like that, Minerva couldn't watch anymore, couldn't listen to apologies for hatred that she had every entitlement in the world to feel, couldn't stand the guilt that clearly glinted through her eyes, permeated through every ounce in her being.

"Bitter? Dear girl, no. No. What he did to your parents was immoral, but what he did to you was far, far worse. The grief he has given you exceeds any emotion that he could ever possibly feel," McGonagall ached to take her hand, her shaking, wavering hand in her own, to offer any sort of comfort that she could give, but she knew it was a bad idea, knew that Hermione would not appreciate the gesture as much as she would like to give it.

Hermione said nothing, could think of nothing to say, nothing that could properly put into words what she _needed_ to say. "I don't want to talk about him anymore, please," she knew it was quiet, knew it sounded desperate, knew that she sounded hurt, and still could do nothing to make it sound less emotional, nothing to make herself sound detached.

McGonagall nodded again, took a quick moment to recollect herself. "The law does not require you to have a guardian," she laid her soothing Scottish tone on thickly, hoping to comfort, "however Hogwarts prefers that you have one in the event that something should happen. Molly Weasley has offered to be that guardian."

The jerk that Hermione gave hinted sorely at her surprise, and her widened eyes gave her away.

"Surely you are not shocked, Hermione?" Minerva smiled indulgently, tenderly. "I offered myself, but student-teacher conflicts prevent that from being a suitable option. If you have no qualms with Molly, we can situate you there after you have been released."

_Nod._ Hermione instructed herself. _God damn it, nod!_

She wanted to thank whoever was listening for the people in her life who cared about her, yearned to weep because of the intense feelings of love that washed over her, ached to hug the professor who carried the pleasing news.

She did nod. She did cry. But she did not hug the professor, because her body, her mind was still not ready for that physical contact, not prepared for affection but only for pain. She did not thank whoever was listening, because she was still angry with them for _not_ listening for an entire month.

But she did nod, did scrounge up a few of the only tears her body had left, and did manage to profusely thank her professor for coming out of her way to visit, to be the unlucky one to first broach painful topics, to offer willingly to become the one person in the world who could legally care for her.

She did profusely thank her professor for voluntarily being the only one brave enough to face her.

* * *

I received a review expressing that they could not wait for the romance to begin. I would like to point out that this process **will be slow**, so for those who are impatient for Hermione/Draco action, this may not be the story for you. Relationships take time -- particularly ones that have been hate/hate for over six years.

Please remember to review! : )


	3. Bonds

Draco hadn't hung around long after Granger had woken up. They didn't want him there and, to be quite honest, he didn't particularly care to be there. His main priority had been to get her out, to find someone who could help her, to get her healed. He didn't have any inclination to see the end results, had no wish to gaze upon her broken innocence, had no wish to speak to the girl – woman?

Was she a woman? She was the same age as all the other chits they went to school with, the other bints whose only passions involved their sex drives. Was Granger really so different from them? She was more intelligent, sure, and far more involved with the war than the others, but did that really put her above the rest of their class?

He wasn't sure, but he simply couldn't group her in the same category as the girls he knew, couldn't find it in him to demote her talents and abilities that way. Snape, in any case, seemed to agree.

Respect, among Slytherins, was difficult to earn, but not so difficult to keep, not really. If something had been done to warrant a Slytherin's high opinion, that standpoint would be maintained until something changed to completely negate it, and it seemed that, despite all of Granger's little stints with Potter and Weasley, Snape respected the Gryffindor. Not solely for her intellect, not just because she was fierce and willing to stand up for what she believed in, but because she had held on tight to those she held dear and refused to let go, something that Draco exclusively knew had been a skill that Snape had lacked in his younger years.

Snape would never admit to keeping Granger any higher on his list than any other Gryffindor, but pulling Draco away from Potter and Weasley had been his way to show it. Draco wouldn't dare to presume to know the darkest, inner secrets of his Potions professor, but he knew enough about his godfather to know when he was overstepping the careful lines that Snape drew around the people he respected.

He was sure that Snape also had that affect on anyone who looked too closely at his godson, as well. He was not foolish enough to believe that he had fought all of his battles at Hogwarts alone, the arguments with Theodore Nott, the handling of the Ravenclaw boy who continuously shot accusations at him. No, Severus had helped, had sat down with the boys and while he didn't actually say that they had best leave Draco be, the message was implied, and taken to heart. They never called Draco out again, and Draco was free to act the part of the public prat his father wanted him to be.

An absent thought occurred to him that he was now free to be who he wanted to be, but that door was quickly slammed shut and locked tightly. He was not, could never be free so long as Voldemort's men still freely walked this earth and kept watch, and their children rested within Hogwarts' walls to look after Draco whenever they could not.

A hard sigh breathed from his lungs, escaped from his lips. Would it never be over? Would he always be condemned to living a life that he didn't want? He would never claim to be a white knight hiding in secret for the better good, the thought of it even sounded ridiculous, but he knew that he wasn't being who he wanted to be, knew that he was acting a part that was necessary instead of the one he chose. Would he never have the opportunity to test the waters, to see what sort of man he could be if things had been up to him?

_Wallowing again,_ Draco scowled at himself. _I'd probably have turned out just the way my father wanted me to be if it weren't for Severus._

If he could trust nothing else, he could trust that, he could trust that he would have continued to obliviously idolize his father if Severus had not given him an out, had not crudely pointed out the wrongs that his father had done, had not forced him to see that muggleborns were no different than purebloods. It hadn't been hard, at first, for Draco to keep spitting insults at Granger, hadn't been hard because he'd still believed them.

But every one of her successes, every grade higher than him, every accomplishment she'd achieved had shoved Severus's words back in his face, had reminded him that there was another perspective than the one that belonged to his father.

Eventually he had grown out of the prejudices, had learned that he didn't even care anymore, not really, because he just wanted to be out of this mess.

His musings, his moping, his self-pity were interrupted by a quick word from his mother. "Draco," Narcissa paused, and Draco knew, could simply _tell_ that his mother was about to ask him a question, and he was sure that it would be one that he did not want to answer, but would feel obligated to anyway. "I want you to tell me exactly what Lucius did to Miss Granger."

He winced. Oh yes, he was sure he did not want to answer this question, and from anyone else he certainly would not, in fact, he was sure that Snape had instructed her to ask for specifically that reason, because his questions would be answers by familial commitments opposed to ripping the answers from him by force. That was probably his godfather's Slytherin way of giving him a choice.

**/**x**\**

Hermione had been thankful that McGonagall had seemingly passed along the message that she was not to be touched, and apparently had omitted to relate the severe reaction she had been given when she'd tried. She would have to remember to behave particularly well in her favorite teacher's class, to turn in only the essays with the absolute highest standards, and to buy her a really, really nice birthday gift.

Harry and Ron had been frantic, fussed over her endlessly. She had tired of it quickly, because she was forced to fight away tears every time they asked her how she was feeling, or if she needed more books, or even if she needed her pillows readjusted. She couldn't help it; she was just overwhelmed with the love she felt from them, from the support she was getting, from their worry. She had only been in this position – the position that required attention and exclusive care – a few times so it shocked her to see how much they cared, how much her love for them and their love for her had grown over the years.

She had been told several times what Draco had done for her, and only when she had told Ron off for retelling the story disdainfully did they cease to talk about it. She didn't know if she liked feeling indebted to Lucius' son, the very same son that had ridiculed and insulted not only her, but her now deceased parents, but she knew that she was eternally grateful to him for pulling her out of his father's grasp.

"You ready, 'Mione?" Harry asked, a small boyish smile twisting the corners of his mouth as they prepared to take her home.

_Home, _Hermione thought, with a sharp pain.

She loved the Burrow, loved the people in it, and particularly loved that they loved her enough to take her in as one of her own, but it would never be her home, would never be where she had made all of her childhood memories, would never be where she remembered her mother's cooking, never where she remembered drinking wine with her parents' work friends at Christmas time.

"Yes," she answered, clearing her throat. She didn't want to be sad anymore, was entirely too sick of it. She was sick of the dreams that haunted her, sick of the scars that she now felt made her exposed, sick of wondering exactly how much the general public knew.

"We're going to levitate you into the wheelchair now," Ruby held her wand out for Hermione to see, and only proceeded when Hermione nodded in her direction.

It had been two weeks since Hermione was admitted, and that meant two weeks of not only physical recovery but also the beginnings of her mental and emotional recovery. Ruby wasn't sure if she would ever completely recover, but she was sure that it would not be from lack of support. If nothing else, Hermione Granger was deeply cared for and would have a shoulder to lean on if she ever felt the need.

Unfortunately it looked like Hermione were not seeking anyone to cry to, she was searching to completely suppress the memory of it.

Ruby certainly wasn't a psychiatrist and had not been trained for emotional matters anything this extreme, but she was sure that shoving the emotions to the side, that not dealing with them at all was not the way to handle the awful situation. It wasn't her place to say so of course, but she was certainly reminded of it every time Hermione jerked during the night shifts, the way she woke to tears – silent tears, as though she were afraid to be punished if she cried too loudly, the way that she clenched her jaw whenever someone's jumper skimmed her bare flesh.

It worried her.

_It's not my place._

That had been Ruby's mantra for the entirety of Hermione Granger's stay, and she repeated it once again as her wand gracefully performed the motions to pull Hermione into the air, to carefully and expertly deliver her to the wheelchair. That was it. She would, with any luck, never see Hermione Granger again.

**/**x**\**

Molly had run off to the kitchen to prepare Hermione's welcome-back meal, tears blocking up in her eyes which Hermione could not help but notice. She loved the woman all the more for it. Mrs. Weasley had thus left her alone with the twins, Harry, and Ron for company.

"Hermione!" Fred and George cried out in unison.

Molly Weasley had been very adamant that Harry and Ron were the only ones to visit her. _"There's no use crowding her,"_ Harry and Ron had mocked so many times. _"You'll all see her when she comes home."_

Hermione never mentioned that this wasn't her home, would never wish to appear that ungrateful, would never, _ever_ want to hurt Mrs. Weasley that way.

"Hi," she smiled at them, tried not to make it look forced, and pushed herself to stand up.

"Hermione, sit back down!" Ron frowned. "Ruby said you're not supposed to be out of there for another week!"

"Come off it, Ron," Hermione chided. "I'll sit when I'm tired. I've done nothing but sit and twiddle my thumbs for two weeks. My limbs don't appreciate the inactivity."

"But the healer said – " Harry tried his hand at protesting.

"We're glad you're back!" Fred cried over the end of Harry's sentence, effectively cutting him off while smirking in the process of it.

Harry glared at him.

"We need a good brain!" George indulged, winking. "Got some new things scheming – "

"Need a few minor adjustments," Fred continued, effortlessly picking up his twin's thoughts.

"Very minor, of course, Miss Granger," George carried on.

"Could use that good ol' brain of yours for the tweaks," Fred batted his eyes, mimicking the old-fashioned, girlish ways in an attempt to gain her favor.

"We'll see," she murmured. "Somehow I don't think that would help any of the prefects this year."

The twins balked. "Prefects are too snotty – "

"Too bossy – "

"And too damn nosy – "

"For their own good!" George chirped playfully.

Hermione hummed softly from the back of her throat, decided not to mention that she was hoping to give up her prefect badge, refused to mention that she had been planning to speak to McGonagall at the first opportunity. She doubted that any of the children would approve of that particular notion.

"Ron," Hermione ignored the twins, "can you find Ginny for me?"

"Sure, 'Mione," Ron obeyed, leaping up the stairs with his long, gangly legs.

She leaned back against the table, hip cocked against the wood. "Harry? Can I talk to the twins for a moment?"

"Oh, a secret for us, Granger?" Fred tossed out conspiratorially.

"So scandalous," George added.

Harry frowned, not alleviated by the boys' teasing, not keen on the idea of Hermione keeping secrets but clearly unable to deny her anything in her still weakened state. He nodded, reluctant, and trudged up the stairs, hesitating on the first, but moving forward at her slight nod in return.

She turned to the twins, eyes sparking in a way that she had allowed no one to see since her last chat with McGonagall. "I'm sure I don't have long before Ron barrels down and demands to know what secret I'm keeping from them so listen closely. I trust you two to keep this quiet, which is the only reason I'm asking you. I don't want to know how Lucius Malfoy found my parents' home, I don't honestly care. I want to know what happened to them, I want to know where they were buried, and I want to know what was in their will. I'm sure you two are careful enough to scheme this out appropriately and I know you'll keep this between the two of you. Please," she murmured lowly, "don't tell Harry and Ron. Don't tell your mother. There are secrets in my family that I don't want them to know about yet, mostly because I don't even know about them."

In retrospect, Fred and George had probably been surprised at her request, surprised that she wanted to keep anything severe away from her two closest friends. She had never explicitly sought them out before, never for favors, never for anything covert, the only problem was that she simply couldn't get away from Harry and Ron to do it herself. The twins were natural rule-breakers, clearly had an affinity for finding trouble, and were perfect for what she needed them to do.

She was positive that they would ask for explanations in their own roundabout way, and she was not naïve enough to think that they wouldn't dig around if she didn't give them the answers that they wanted.

It wasn't particularly on her list of 'Things I Want To Tell Fred and George Weasley' but she didn't think it could be avoided. She simply couldn't wait any longer for the disclosure of her birth abilities. She had been told about them for longer than she could remember, since she'd been just a baby. Her parents had always promised that as soon as she became of age they would explain to her exactly what she was, explain to her exactly how to master it.

Surely there was a letter, an item, a some sort of _something_ to lead her to what she was. She needed to know, needed to figure out now more than ever, needed something to remind her that she was Hermione Granger, and damn it, no prejudiced, abusive, raving mad lunatic who fancied himself a Death Eater was going to take that away from her.

She was determined not to let that month with him affect the last link that she had to her parents, determined not to let her own emotions get in the way of mastering whatever skill it was that her parents had so diligently waited until her coming of age to allow her access to.

It wasn't just her parents that knew, Hermione suspected. Her aunt and uncle had always known, but they had not been quite so lighthearted when discussing it. She remembered once when she was young being shouted at by her Uncle Cole. She had been pressed against the door, her back jamming into the knob behind her painfully, his body trapping hers from movement while he roughly shook her shoulders and interrogated her with questions she couldn't remember, but never knew the answers to. Her mother had released a loud yelp when she'd walked into the room, had sworn at her uncle relentlessly, and sent Hermione upstairs. She couldn't clearly remember a lot from the rest of the night, except that her uncle and father had shouted a lot and that her Daddy had sent their relatives away. That was the last time she had seen her Uncle Cole and Aunt Kara.

Her parents had given her as many hints on her undeveloped 'talent' that night than they ever did any other time, and had never been given the opportunity to properly explain to her what they needed to, had never told her what it was that she could do.

"_Hermione, understand that we do not keep this from you to be coy, it is kept from you because it is a very serious matter. Are we clear?" Nolan Granger kneeled in front of his daughter, his typically happy smile twisted into a flat, darker line that looked out of place on his mouth._

_She nodded in response, smiled a purely angelic smile to assuage his nervousness. Its only effect was to pain him more._

"_The first thing that we need to tell you, Hermione, is that your name is very important. Your name is part of what you are, as your father's is apart of him, and your uncle's apart of his," JoAnne sat beside Hermione on the loveseat, held her daughter's hand, her tiny, tiny hand close to her heart. _

_Nolan nodded his agreement with his wife's last statement. "The second thing – I need you to listen closely, Hermione, because this is very, very important – is that I was the first to be born in my family, do you understand?"_

_Hermione was confused, was stressed from her parents' tension, but she had the good sense to nod, to try and figure a way to appease them. She didn't think she like seeing her parents this way, this stern and careful, because it was so different to how they usually were, so much more negative._

"_The last thing we need to tell you is – is that we never wished this upon you, we never wanted you to have to go through this," JoAnne was crying softly, and Nolan reached his hand out to squeeze her knee. _

"_Go on upstairs, Hermione," Nolan instructed. "Take a bath, make sure you rinse your hair really well, and don't forget to brush your teeth. I'll come tuck you in when you're finished."_

She had obeyed, of course, as most well-behaved eight-year-olds will. She was too confused to do anything else, and by morning her parents were able to act as if it were any other day, as if she had not been threatened the night before by her uncle, as if they had not revealed any pieces of their dark family secret.

Hermione hadn't forgotten. Even at eight she had been too curious for her own good, but she suspected that was how her parents wanted her to be, that was why they had stressed the importance of their conversation, that was why they left her to her own devices. They wanted her to suss out the equation for herself, and when she turned the right age they would show her the proper way to solve it.

She spent the next day looking up her family's line of descendents. She noticed a pattern of two children to every married couple, took note of it, and passed it over. She frowned when she reached her family line, frowned at the picture beside her own. There was an infant, a name beneath it that read Lainey Granger. There were tears on that page of the thick tome, tears littered across the pictures. She never asked what had happened to the baby; she wrote it off as a death in the family. She was only eight; her parents wouldn't tell her about the older sister she had never known if something had happened to her.

The next thing she had done was look up the meanings of the names on her father's side of the family; her parents had been particular about noting her name, her father's name, and her father's brother's name, so those had naturally topped the list.

Nolan represented a champion, she found out after a quick investigation of the books in her father's study. A smile brightened her innocent face, but it slipped effortlessly and noticeably into a frown when she discovered that the meaning of Cole was 'dark one'. That accurately fit the impression he'd given her the night before, but it was still unsettling. Her face twisted in confusion, her forehead wrinkled as her brows drew together when she discovered that she was named after Hermes, the messenger god, was she was therefore meant to be some sort of messenger, too. Pure curiosity drove her to look Lainey up, also, and 'bright light' only pressed on her befuddlement.

She'd written it all down of course, in a journal that her mother had given to her the previous year. She wrote everything down in it, so it only made sense that she included the conversation, the information, and her hazy emotions of that night and the days following.

**/**x**\**

Fred jumped on the bed beside Hermione, causing the quill she'd been writing with to smudge. She shot him a half-hearted glare, silently praising him for remembering not to touch her during the landing.

"Well, Miss Granger," Fred said theatrically, while George drummed up some very dramatic music to match, "we've got your information! Your new legal representatives pulled through for you."

Hermione's eyes widened briefly. She closed her journal, pushed it under the bed, pushed it out of her mind for the moment. She started to speak but felt she might stutter, so she cleared her throat softly and tried again. "Did you find out all of it?"

"Yes," George grinned, tugging a few scraps of paper from his breast pocket, held them up for her to see. "Why, Miss Granger, it even looks as though we've scrounged you a copy!"

She knew that they were trying to lighten the mood, were trying to make it hurt less to look at the papers, to learn what had been left to her through her parents, and also knew that no matter what they did, it would hurt. "Can I have it, please?" She asked quietly. She cringed violently, realized that she had forced that quietness away from her voice within the first few days of her recovery, never wanted to hear it fall from her lips again.

Fred and George simultaneously frowned at the tone, even more so when she flinched. They had all prided how well she was progressing, how well she'd handled the loss of her parents and her home, how well she'd dealt with the scars and her memories of Malfoy. They had been so proud of her for holding up that they hadn't really taken the time to be wary of whatever emotions she kept hidden away from them, whatever thoughts she didn't want to share, whatever recollections she dreamed of in private, at night, and whatever tears she might have shed over the past weeks while outside of their company.

All it took was the one jerk of her body to remind them that she _was_ broken. She was doing a spectacular job of keeping herself together, enough that they had taken a little too much notice to the one harsh movement in reaction to the weak voice she'd adapted.

George silently handed over the papers, including two sealed envelopes, one in her mother's delicate cursive and the other marked by her father's sharp hand. Scrawled on the front of his letter was _'Read me first'_ with a small smiley beside it. Her body shook as it fought the urge to cry. She forced the tears back before they could wet her eyes. "Thank you," she said clearly, enunciating her words carefully to make sure that they did not think she was crying. "I think I'd like to look at them in private, if you don't mind."

"'Course you would," Fred flashed a small grin, one that told her he didn't believe the guise for a second.

"Maybe later we can borrow that brain as payment for our dirty work," George winked.

She fought a sigh, angry that she couldn't have fooled them, comforted only slightly by the fact that it was their job to trick people, that it would take someone far more stoic than she to fool the Weasley twins. She plastered on a smile in a worthless attempt to convince them she would be alright, or maybe to more accurately convince them that she didn't need them right now, thanks, and would appreciate it if they left until she called upon them later.

They nodded, deciding quickly that their nosing about would have to wait until after, would have to wait until she'd come to terms with her parents' will and had read whatever they had left her in their letters.

Her parents had left their entire bank account and practice in her name, had left her their home and all of their possessions. There was a note attached to the bottom asking her to call her parents' attorney to sort through what she wanted to do with the house and practice. She quickly decided that she would call and tell the lawyer to sell them both – the practice to some aspiring dentist, and the house to anyone who would buy. She would go to collect the important things to take with her, after securing permission from Mrs. Weasley, and would keep everything else in storage.

She held her breath while she dug her fingers under the sealed envelope of her father's letter. It was long, was the first thing she noted, long and written in small print. His handwriting was so familiar to her, so recognizable that she would have recognized it anywhere. Looking at it pressed the tears to the front of her eyes. She steeled herself to read whatever he had to say, hoped that it included something positive, something she ached to hear that would have left them some kind of connection. She didn't want to let them go yet, she simply wasn't ready, not nearly prepared.

_My Dearest Daughter,_

_I fear that if you have obtained this letter then both your mother and I have passed away. I pray that you do not feel alone, because I need you to understand that you are not, that you never will be without us. We will be with you in more ways than you could possibly imagine. Do not mourn us, Hermione, do not fret over our deaths. We do not fear where we are going, not your mother and most certainly not I._

_We told you once that your name is very important to understanding who you are, Kitten, and that is truer now than ever. I do not doubt that you learned of your sister all those years ago when we first began to hint at what you would become. I regret to tell you that we have purposefully kept her from you since your births. Yes, births. Lainey was, is, and forever will be your twin. Please do not think that we have done this for any other reason than because we love you both greatly. Do not think that we have lied to you with intent to hurt you._

_It will take a while yet for you to understand the purpose of your separation, Hermione, but do know that the time apart was not meant to last the duration of your life – only until your seventeenth birthdays. _

_Now, Kitten, is when I will expose you to what I so desperately attempted to shield you and your sister from your entire life. I ask you not to resent me, not to resent us for doing everything we could to protect you from things you will learn of today, but perhaps will not understand until your seventeenth birthday._

_I have told you before that I was the firstborn in my family, but only by mere minutes. I was brought into the world exactly twelve minutes prior to your Uncle Cole. You, Hermione, were the second to be born between you and your sister._

_Here is where I tell you our family secret, our family curse, to be more accurate. I am not a wizard, Hermione, nor am I anything else that those who belong in your world will approve of. My family belongs to a long line of demons. Do not think that I am teasing you from the grave, my dear, although I do realize how ridiculous I sound. If I were alive to show you, I certainly would._

_Demons – I believe that is what your world refers to us as – are more commonly known to us as Earthly Elements. In our realm, the first born is destined to do great things, is destined to become more than the second born. Understand that most Elements believe wholeheartedly in this theory, and that you will find it makes things more difficult for you as time progresses. _

_Your mother and I are in firm disagreement with the rest of our community. Your sister was sent away to another couple like us unable to have children. She was sent away to keep you safe. You see, Kit, the second born is routinely given less opportunities to show their worth. They are given the cold shoulder by their parents, and more often than not this is what drives them into resentment, into becoming dangerous things. The Elements refuse to see reason when it comes to this, and other than their absurd theory they are a very civilized race. However your mother and I were not willing to send one child into exile, were not willing to encourage their train of thought in this matter._

_I have turned against my family and the Elements to keep you from becoming them, to keep you from believing in traditions that mean little to nothing. Your sister was kept from you so that we would be capable of hiding your birth records. I am sure that you remember the night your uncle became violent with you. Our people were growing impatient. We are born in twos. Although we cannot control the gender of our children, they are always born in twos. Your Uncle Cole is my twin, Lainey is yours. All demons give birth to more demons; this is not like in your world where – purebloods, I believe you call them? – can give birth to nonmagical people. We will always give birth to Elements. They know that you have a twin, Kitten, and they know that we have hidden her not only from them but also from you._

_They await your seventeenth birthday to see you reunited. It pains them not to know who the eldest is, and I advise you not to tell them. If they do not know, then they must treat you equally. Yours is not the first case to be this way, and precedent will draw them to the same conclusion._

_I cannot tell you which of the Elements you will represent, because I do not know. I can only tell you that I stood for fire. Keep in mind that mastering an element is not all that demons do. Many work with swords, others deal with more brutal ways of fighting. The purpose of the Elements has always been to keep things from getting out of hand, which has always been a problem to the witches and wizards who know of us. _

_They are under the impression that we have too much power, that the ability to manipulate natural occurrences is dangerous. We were born with these talents, just as you were. On your seventeenth birthday, I ask you to be prepared. You will be brought to our realm, you will meet your sister for the very first time, and you will learn things about yourself that you have never known of before. _

_I love you, Hermione. Never think anything different, never think that I did this for any other reason. Your mother and I love you and your sister more than anything else in the world._

_Dad_

If Hermione had planned to keep her eyes dry, she was sorely mistaken. The tears were silent, travelled down her cheeks without a single sob escaping, but they fell in rivers, constant, steady rivers that looked to have no intention of stopping.

She was upset, she was more confused than she had ever been in her entire life, she was desperate to plow through the family books again, but there was no doubt that her love for her parents and the grief she felt at losing them trumped everything else. She was willing to ignore the demon business until the tears subsided, was even willing to wait until she thought more about the apparent twin that she had never met. She just wanted the tears to stop.

She forced herself to take her breaths in long, deep drags, wiped furiously at the bodies of water that relentlessly built up behind her eyes, and took several minutes to calm herself before allowing the numbness to subside.

Hermione decided to tackle the sister first. If it was true, and she couldn't imagine any way that it wouldn't be, then how was she meant to wait until her birthday to meet her? True, they hadn't known of each other before now, but how could she ignore that she had a sister, a _twin_ that had existed somewhere in the world for sixteen plus years and had never met her?

Vaguely, she wondered if Lainey knew that she had a twin, or if she knew about the Elements. It would be logical that if her father had written her a letter, he would also write one to her sister, but he had not raised Lainey, so perhaps he had not.

She remembered that Lainey's parents were Elements also, so that helped, but she still had no idea where the girl was, where she lived. Now that she knew, she just couldn't bring her heart to stop wondering. Still another part of her screamed that this was too surreal, that there was no way she could have discovered an unknown sister and find out that she was 'cursed' to being a demon all in one day, through one letter.

Her father had no reason to lie to her, and his writing had clearly not been forged. There were too many details included in the letter for anyone but her mother and father to have known, and he repeatedly called her Kitten, which had been her father's pet name for her.

_Alright,_ Hermione decided to think logically, _clearly there is some truth to it._

The idea of demons was not foreign to her, was not something that she had never heard of. She had read about them, had learned that most wizards and witches did not approve of their existence, but there were never many details on how they lived, on what they did, or if they were born in twos.

It obviously _could_ be true, she just didn't know how her parents had hidden it, how she could possibly have not known such a big thing – _two_ things of such great importance – for her entire life.

_You wanted a connection,_ Hermione frowned to herself. _Well, you've certainly got it._

**/**x**\**

I finally figured out that I wanted to try something different, that I didn't want to follow the usual romance path. It _will_ be a romance eventually, do not doubt that. I have always thought the idea of using the elements was an intriguing thought. After reading a supernatural story called Keogh, I decided to go for it.

I hadn't actually had any real direction to go with this story, just a few scenes in my head. All of those scenes can still be used with this new plot-twist, so I saw it as win-win. I hope that I have not turned readers away, but if I have I apologize. I write not only for your pleasure but for mine, and my heart is pretty set on this one. Please review if you did enjoy! : )


	4. Dawn

_She felt her body tremble, felt the aches and sores spread throughout her body, her fingers clawing into the hard stone floor, nails grating and breaking apart. She writhed, screamed helplessly, ashamed of herself, of the tears tracking down her face, of the pathetic way she handed herself over to him._

_What was she to do? She had no wand, no skill with Apparition, hell, she didn't even have her dignity anymore._

_Her body – her _naked_, throbbing body may as well have belonged to Lucius Malfoy for all that she could do to fight him. It was what he wanted, exactly what he took pleasure in, and precisely the way he expected her to give over the information he needed. _

_The one thing he needed and the one thing she would never, ever tell him._

"_Mudblood, I tire of your defiance," Lucius sneered down at her coolly, careless of her screams, the sobs that collapsed against her lungs, the harsh breaths that she found were difficult to suck in. _

_Today, Lucius Malfoy did not want the release he had taken to using her for, he did not want the faux passion he ordinarily gained from inserting himself inside of her, gyrating his hips like something possessed while she was either unconscious or squirming helplessly beneath him in protest. Today he wanted his information, wanted the details on Lily Potter's protection for her son, wanted her to guide him into killing Harry Potter. Today he wanted to take out his frustrations, his anger out on her weak, emaciated frame, and nothing in the world could stop him._

_With a sudden jerk, he removed her from the curse's constrictions. She gasped in air, sobbing from the pain, sobbing from the humiliation and the squalor, praying, hoping for anyone to take her away from here, to take her home, to rid of Lucius Malfoy and his painful persecutions._

_It hurt to breathe. Every time she sucked a breath in she felt the sting in her lungs, the straining of her muscles, she swore she heard her bones break. _

Please,_ she thought frantically, _please let him be finished.

_The glint of the silver blade elicited a shriek from her, a shrill noise that she had no way of controlling, that she knew as soon as she released would bring that feral grin back to his face, mocking her, terrifying her. _

_What more could he do? Had he not already bruised, slashed, and demeaned her body and pride enough? Did he have no limits?_

_The whimper that her shout had died down to was worse, even to her own ears. It did nothing to hide her horror, her absolute fear of the blade touching her flesh again, and she knew that it would only encourage him. She couldn't control her breathing, could scarcely even hear what he was saying now. _

_He crouched down to bring his hand sharply against her cheek, effectively reverting her attention back to him, back to his sickening voice, his disturbingly eerie tone. "Listen to me, you inferior filth!" He snarled viciously. _

No,_ she thought_, he clearly was not in one of his more forgiving moods.

"_My Lord has begun to think of me as a liability, mudblood, because of you_ _and your silence and it will no longer be tolerated!" Malfoy stood furiously to kick her side, only her arm hung limply in his path, taking the brunt of the force. She tightened her jaw. She could handle this, she needed to handle this. It was one of his softer forms of torture, and if she could not handle this then she stood no chance of surviving long enough to escape from the hellhole she was in. _

_Her insides twittered roughly, reminding her that she had no means of escape, that it had been a long time – _too long_ – since she'd been taken and clearly they either did not know she had been taken or could not find where she had been taken to. She pushed the sobs back into her chest, tried to fight the pessimism because it would not help her, and still could not help but wonder if this was where she would die, where she would take her last breath, if naked and bloody would be the way she was featured in _The Daily Prophet_, and if so, how Harry and Ron would cope with that._

Stop!_ She ordered herself to quit thinking that way, because if she were to die it would not be because she had leaked Harry's secrets, and she will have died knowing that she protected him and honored his trust, his confidentiality. But that did not stop her from being afraid, because she was absolutely terrified that she would not survive long enough to see herself out of here._

_Malfoy's face was twisted in disgust as his boots quickly lifted and dully landed against the sturdy stone that she was sprawled across. "I would expect someone as… _intelligent_," he scowled darkly at the word, "as yourself to be wise enough to know when you are fighting a losing battle."_

_The pacing continued. Hermione could not count the taps of his shoes, and it scared her. She tried once, twice, and then a third time and could not keep her focus long enough to reach past the number ten._

"_Tell me, mudblood! Tell me the secret to killing Potter!" Lucius roared._

_Hermione flinched, the movement causing more pain than perhaps the actual curse had, but denied him. "No," she grated out, and even the two-letter word pained her._

_Malfoy shouted out in his anger, brought himself down to her level quicker than she could blink – which unfortunately not very quick, she could admit, due to her lack of sleep and utter exhaustion – and dug the blade sharply into her chest. She yelped in pain, the wound stinging smartly, hindering her already unsteady breaths, her body too weak to scramble away from him._

"_You worthless child!" Lucius growled, more angry than she had yet heard him, pressing the knife into her stomach, deeper than the last, the contusion he made also longer than most of the others he'd inflicted upon her body._

_The sobs were back, harsh and excruciating, unstoppable despite the agony they put her through. _

_Malfoy was on a rage, the knife carrying out his fury, the blood across her skin proof of his uncontrollable temper. She cried, body parts twitched uselessly in a vain attempt to move away from the sting. He was relentless and ferocious, severe and brutal. And he wasn't stopping, looked like he wouldn't for anything in the world._

_And then he hissed, a sound almost foreign to her from his mouth. He stood up, his robes whipping around him in a way almost reminiscent of Professor Snape, and he clicked his thumb and forefinger together. A house elf materialized in front of her, she could hardly see it through her sketchy, tired eyes._

"_Heal her," Malfoy gritted his teeth together, glancing down at her disdainfully before Apparating away._

_She felt only slightly safer, but knew that she would not be touched – because the house elf never touched her. Hermione allowed her eyes to slip shut, allowed her mind to fall into the black that had been invading her vision since he'd entered the small dungeon._

**/**x**\**

She'd slept awfully, her night plagued with Malfoy, with glints and flashes of shimmering knives and painful interrogations. Her heart pounded roughly, her breaths were labored, and she unwillingly kept fumbling over memories that she'd hoped to keep buried, that she'd worked damn hard to pound into a box and set into the darkest, most unused corner of her mind.

Hermione stumbled down the stairs after dressing, tired, her body shaking – a side-effect of the Cruciatus that she was told would probably never die away, and would strike up whenever she found that she was stressed – and managed, only barely, to set the kettle running without smashing Mrs. Weasley's china.

The tears crashed down her face unbidden, but she didn't pay attention to them, could only just keep her mind in the present long enough to notice them. She closed her eyes, squeezed them shut, really, and willed the thoughts to go away. She was safe now, she was safe. He couldn't touch her, couldn't hurt her, couldn't curse her or sentence her to the Cruciatus.

The kettle whistled softly, Hermione aggressively jerked in her chair, startled by the noise, frightened. She hated herself for fearing the slightest noises, hated that she couldn't get away from him even now, even weeks after she'd been rescued from him. She stood unsteadily, finished preparing the tea, scrabbling with the cups, unable to control the tremors in her hands. She didn't want to be afraid anymore, didn't want to be reminded of him anymore. But she also didn't want to forget, didn't want to banish the memories completely because she knew that she needed them to motivate her, needed to remember what Malfoy had done to her parents, what he'd done to _her_ to keep herself going.

It was early; dawn was barely touching the horizon. On impulse, Hermione wanted to watch it, wanted to watch the sun's rays whisper across the dewy lawn. She crept out the front door, pressed it shut with a soft click and pressed her limbs to work long enough to find the garden. She sat cross-legged on the dusty ground, not minding that her jeans were getting dirty.

The sky behind her, opposite of the sun barely peeking up, was dull and gray, and she just didn't want to look at it. She watched the colors, the vibrant gold, the sleepy oranges, appreciated the blues that the sky provided around the sun.

She rested her elbows on her knees, placed her head inside of her hands, tugged at her hair and sobbed into the quiet, humid morning. Would the pain ever go away?

**/**x**\**

Fred and George watched Hermione in a rare moment of reverent silence, afraid to startle her, afraid to be caught watching her. She wouldn't have liked it very much for them to see her crying, not about this.

They couldn't be sure of exactly what she was crying about, but she shook too hard, jumped too much for it to be over anything petty, and they were positive that she was beyond crying over the petty things, because she had been through too much to cry over the things that didn't matter.

The twins didn't like it.

Hermione Granger was smart, and loyal, and _good_. And she still was those things, all of those things, but now she hurt.

It hadn't been too hard to conjure up disguises and IDs to venture into London and pretend to be Hermione's representatives, to pretend that she had sent them in her stead because she was a bit busy at the moment working things through with her family. She _had_ sent them, and she _was_ working things through with her family, only she had sent them as friends, not as her legal attorneys, and she was working things through with her _new_ family and settling in, not the old family to work out her living arrangements.

The will had been easy to obtain, the letters only slightly harder. The Grangers' attorney had hesitated, explained that the Grangers had been very direct and forward when stating that the letters _must_ reach Hermione, and no one had best look at their letters before she read them. They'd been very convincing, very polite, very understanding, and the lawyer had caved within a few moments.

They hadn't read the letters; nosy as they were, they would never snoop around anything that personal, that was just beyond invasive, beyond trickery and curiosity. It would have been rude, unseemly, and positively _wrong_.

Fred had figured that Hermione would share with them when he was ready, that they should wait until that time to ask their numerous questions.

George disagreed. He didn't think that Hermione would tell them anything in those letters unless they asked about it, but Fred wouldn't allow them to question her.

"Did you see how upset she was at dinner?" Fred argued quietly, once they had ducked out of hearing range. "Something in those letters didn't match up, Georgie. Besides, she was right sobbing, she was. You heard her."

"Yes," George murmured in agreement. He didn't need to say anything. Fred understood that there was more to his answer, understood that he was curious but would be patient if it was necessary, understood that he wasn't sure if it was okay that she wasn't telling anyone else about the letters.

They worried in silence, Fred tapping his finger to his thigh thoughtfully, George gnawing on his lip, intent to watch Hermione through to window. He needed to be sure that she was safe, after all. It simply wouldn't do for her to be taken again, not ever again.

**/**x**\**

Sunup meant that the Weasleys were sure to be stirring. Hermione figured she should hurry back before they began to worry, but she didn't want to tear her eyes away from the sky, from the glistening grass. In an hour or two the dew would be gone, wouldn't sparkle the way it did now, and the sun's colors would have been much less appealing. She wanted to stay, wanted to watch the colors, feel the moisture in the air, the light breeze that wafted across the garden.

She shifted to bring her knees up to her chest, rested her cheek against her thighs.

How had it all gotten this pear-shaped?

She breathed out a huff of air, satisfied that even if the tremors had not stopped, she had corrected her breathing.

Exhausted.

That was how she was feeling, how she'd _been_ feeling. She had hoped that her parents' letters would clear some things up, would give her some sort of goal to aim toward, something to use her bottomless motivation _for_. If they had given her something to go at, she didn't know about it yet. According to her father, she had to wait until her birthday in September.

True, the summer was almost over, but that was still half a month's worth of time to think things over, and she wasn't sure that was such a great idea. She didn't want to _think_ about what she would say to her sister when – _if –_ she were to come across her on September nineteenth, she just wanted to play it by ear. She was _done_ thinking, letting her thoughts and hesitations drive her away from things that she knew needed to be done. She was not foolish enough to think that meeting her sister and finding the demons was a shoe-in guarantee. She would be at Hogwarts after all, and if some demon – Element, she corrected herself, because she'd gathered from her father's letter that they frowned upon the name 'demon' – had planned to come and retrieve her it might be a hell of a lot more difficult to reach her at Hogwarts.

Clearly, though, they were not ignorant to magic, nor were wizards ignorant of them. They just didn't get along. She wondered how it would be to have a little of both mixed in her.

She didn't like to think about the EEs (Earthly Elements) too often, because she feared that she would be disappointed if she didn't come into it on her own, if she would never meet the alleged twin sister that her father had told her about. Hermione's mother had assured her that the sister existed, had verified that her father's claim was legit, and mostly spent the rest of the letter detailing the items that held sentimental value that Hermione should remove from the house. She also told Hermione that she loved her then, and that she would love her no less in death.

So her mother had been the one to soothe things over, as per usual, and her father had taken on the more serious matter. It had always been that way. Both parents were always _there_ when the bad news was delivered, but her father spoke most, her father relayed the gritty details while her mother stroked her hair, offered to make tea, and came up to Hermione's room to rock her while she cried. Her parents had melded together that way before Hermione was born. Her dad handled the adults at the practice, and her mother comforted the frightened children while inspecting their teeth.

She was just confused, unbearably so. It seemed unreal to be going back to Hogwarts in a week, it was difficult to imagine going back to classes, pretending everything was alright as she'd done in the past. No, she'd seen this war upfront, more than ever before, and she wasn't keen on acting like it didn't happen.

Not for the first time she wondered how much the outsiders knew. Mrs. Weasley and the band of redheads that were now not only her friends, but her family had made it a point to keep _The Prophet_ out of sight, and consequently out of Hermione's mind. It led her to believe that perhaps the public knew a far sight more than she'd like, and that disturbed her. She'd much rather be prepared for whatever attention she'd be getting, come September first.

**/**x**\**

"Morning Hermione," Mr. Weasley said brightly, a smile lighting his face. It suited him, and smiles were becoming rarer and rarer these days. It pleased her, if only slightly.

"Morning Mr. Weasley," Hermione nodded back, unable to muster a smile at the time. "How'd you sleep?"

"Very well," he said, shifting in his chair. "And yourself?"

She tensed, turned her back to pour herself some coffee, and – after pausing a hair too long – she said, "I slept fine." She knew he didn't believe her, couldn't particularly blame him for the concerned frown that fell over his mouth, but she didn't have to like that she was worrying and hurting them, especially not because it seemed that lately she'd been doing just that more and more often.

Her hands shook with the coffee mug and it struck her that perhaps coffee hadn't been the best way to stall for time, perhaps the coffee would worry him more than her lack of sleep. It really couldn't be helped now, he'd seen the cup shaking, but she nevertheless set it back on the table, avoiding his eyes.

"Hermione – " he started.

"You should probably be heading off, yes?" Hermione glanced at the clock pointedly. "I think you're a bit late." And he was, but they both knew that wasn't why she'd pointed it out.

He looked thoughtful for a moment, but stood, offering a small smile as he did. When he passed her he bent over, as if to kiss the crown of her head, but she stiffened, gripped the handle of the mug with a vengeance, knuckles turning white. He stopped a moment before his lips touched her hair, pulled back suddenly. "Merlin…" he murmured, "forgive me. I – I forgot."

She sharply drew in a breath, thankful he spoke, thankful for the reminder that this was Mr. Weasley, not Malfoy, and that he'd never hurt her. "It's okay," she said on an exhale. "It's okay," she said again, more to assure herself than him. "You should… get moving, I think."

"Yes," he said slowly. "Yes, of course. I'll see you this evening then."

As soon as the door slipped closed, Hermione's eyes did as well. She hated that she couldn't stand the feel of anyone else's hands, hated that despite that these were her friends, her _family_, she couldn't let them touch her. But more than that, more than the dreams and the memories, even more than the scars, she hated that they felt that they had to hesitate with her. It wasn't unfounded, that much was clear and there had been an obvious example of that just a moment ago, because if this had been Ginny, or hell, any of the girls in her dorm at Hogwarts, she'd hesitate to feign normalcy, too.

**/**x**\**

Mrs. Weasley declared that she wanted to pick up the school supplies alone this year, to avoid "the hustle and bustle" of getting ready to leave. Harry and Ron didn't mind, that meant that they could avoid going into the bookshop, and neither of them particularly enjoyed shopping anyway.

It bothered Hermione. She was sure that Mrs. Weasley had intended well, but she was going stir-crazy, and she knew that the Weasley matriarch had only been trying to keep Hermione away from large crowds. While that was a nice gesture, she knew it would make it worse when she arrived at Platform 9 and ¾. She didn't particularly care for having another one of her fits before she even hit Hogwarts, especially not around all of her classmates.

"Mum's only doing her best," Ginny defended softly when Hermione broached the subject. "But I understand why it could make things worse."

She shrugged, struggled with words for a moment before she said quietly, "I'm thankful, I really am. I just – I don't know that I like being the cause of plans shifting and schedules changing is all." It was partially a lie, because she didn't want to go into detail about her fits; the only person who had seen one of them had been McGonagall, and she supposed Mr. Weasley had caught the tail end of one a couple of days before, but she'd managed to calm herself considerably. She had vanished the tears, used a bit of water from her wand to rinse her face, and had controlled her harsh breathing. He'd seen the shakes, the tense body, but she knew that wasn't the worst of it.

"Hermione," Ginny asked warily, "can I ask you something?"

"You can," Hermione said, "I just may not answer."

Ginny nodded and absentmindedly continued to comb her hair while she thought of how to word what she meant to say. "When Malfoy… _took_ you, did he say – I mean, did he… have a _reason_?"

Rigid and firm, "You mean besides that he's a heartless bastard?" She snarled callously. Ginny blushed and Hermione watched her eyes water. She waited a moment to finish, enough time to compose herself, before she gave Ginny the answer that she'd been looking for. "Yes, he had a reason," she said, tightly gripping her quill, entirely unaware that it had snapped in half.

Ginny wasn't dim like Ron had a tendency to be, she was smart, and quite capable of taking hints and interpreting the words that weren't said. She knew Hermione wasn't ready to talk yet, knew that Hermione wasn't planning on divulging anything else, and could respect that. Lucius Malfoy wasn't especially high on Ginny's list either, not after the Chamber of Secrets, but he'd never actually _hurt_ her. Tom had, sort of, but it had been an emotional hurt more than anything, and all he had done was knock her unconscious. Granted, he had planned to kill her, but he hadn't hurt her yet.

Lucius Malfoy hadn't just hurt Hermione, he'd permanently wrecked her. She was still alive, still Hermione, but it bothered them all that she no longer gave hugs, that she hadn't shown any signs of wanting to ever feel another human touch again. She could understand it, really she could, and _God_ she could scarcely stand to look at Hermione on some days because the scars were such a painful reminder of why she didn't like to be touched. It was just different not to be greeted with the patented Hermione Bear Hug, or a kiss on the cheek, or even a touch on the shoulder.

It _hurt_ to see her in this much pain, hurt to pretend not to hear her when she started to grunt and moan, writhe, twist, squirm in the night and woke up to have a cup of tea. Ginny'd never had the courage to turn and watch as she left nor to even ask if she was all right, but what good would it have done anyway? She clearly _was not_ alright, and Ginny didn't think she'd appreciate being asked such a redundant question.

"I have to go talk to your dad," Hermione mumbled, very much aware that Ginny had spent the past few minutes watching her, uncomfortable with the attention and the distress.

She dragged her feet downstairs, her body aching – yet another effect of the Cruciatus that the healers had told her would happen now and again. They said that she could ask the school healer for a dose of potion for it, and they had given her some bottles to take home that would help it, but Hermione was reluctant to take them. They had said that some days it might get so painful that she couldn't move, and she shouldn't try to force herself if that should happen, but today was not one of those days. It just ached; not exactly a dull ache, but not unbearable, either.

"Wotcher, Hermione!" Tonks's cheerful voice startled her, caused her to grip the banister tightly until she could let the fear wash away with the recognition of who was speaking.

"Hi, Tonks," she tried to smile, but was sure it was at least a bit strained. "Lupin."

He'd demanded after a point that they quit calling him 'Professor' but she just couldn't use his first name, so Lupin had stuck.

"How are you?" He asked kindly, the frown lines around his mouth giving away his true intent.

_Well,_ Hermione thought wryly, _isn't that a loaded question. My limbs ache, my eyes are practically collapsing in fatigue, I look like a bleeding raccoon, I need to talk to my parents' lawyer, and this is the second time today that I've been asked – directly or indirectly – about Lucius Malfoy. I'm fine, thanks, how are you?_

"Okay," she answered instead, fearing for a moment that she might tell him something he needn't concern himself with. "Have you seen Mr. Weasley?"

"He's at the Ministry, I'm afraid," Lupin said. "Anything I can help with?"

Well, he could help, maybe. "I… need to talk with my parents' attorney to deal with the house, and my parents' practice," she said, only just able to keep the tears, the utter depression at bay. She would have waited for Mr. Weasley, but it had taken too long to work up the courage to ask at all, and she feared that if she didn't ask now she wouldn't be able to later. "I have to go get some things from my house and work out arrangements with the moving and storage companies."

There. That had sounded okay, she thought. A bit too professional for them to think she was really okay with the situation, but not sniveling, despite the feeling of complete emptiness that had washed over her.

**/**x**\**

Author's Note: I know, none of Draco in this chapter. He'll be in the next one, don't worry. This was more of an attempt to bind the two plots together, to show that the demon-issue isn't going to completely overshadow the loss of her parents and the pain Malfoy caused. I hope I didn't do too horribly. Please review. : )


	5. Space

Draco had earnestly tried to forget about Granger, to forget what he had seen, to forget the reason why his father was now in Azkaban, to forget why Snape and Dumbledore had whisked him into hiding. His problem was that they wouldn't let him forget. His mother, Severus, the headmaster… they kept asking him questions, forcing the dark images to the forefront of his mind, drawing the memories away to create replicas – and during those blissful moments with the memories absent, Draco took the opportunity to sleep sans the nightmares that haunted him regularly.

He had been the core reason that Lucius Malfoy had been locked in Azkaban. Of course, the bruised and bloodied pictures of Granger that the press had managed to snag at St. Mungo's before the healer had shooed them away had also contributed to his sentence. It couldn't be disputed, really. As reluctant as Fudge was to throw Lucius to the Dementors, it had become a public matter before he could consider a plan to avoid it.

Dumbledore had whisked Draco to _The Daily Prophet_ with his story, and a sack of galleons to persuade them to print it. It stung Draco's eyes to watch Hermione Granger's unmoving body, almost entirely purple and red in color, lying still against the crisp, white hospital sheets. She was, perhaps, the only thing in the room that did not move; the Weasleys were clearly furious, shouting at the reporters behind the window of the ward, Dumbledore's arms urged them all backward, Potter was staring wide-eyed at his friend, too stunned to move forward, but he had managed a few steps backward, instead.

As much as it pained him to look at, Draco couldn't tear his eyes away, couldn't help but to remember that horrid night he had found her. And worse yet, everyone knew it had been him. The Death Eaters, he knew, were furious – Snape had alleged to that. They yearned for revenge. Dumbledore stole him and his mother to a safe house, and needless to say, Draco had no idea where he had been.

On September first, after a Portkey to Platform 9 and ¾, Draco couldn't stop himself from looking around, intently wondering if Granger would even show up, but of course she would. She was a Gryffindor, and one of the best of them, he admitted grudgingly. He didn't want to speak to her, didn't even want to look at her, really, but he _needed_ to see that she had healed, needed a new picture of her to replace the depleted and broken woman he had imagined for the past few weeks.

"She won't be difficult to find," Snape offered quietly, a sneer firmly placed on his lips, should anyone appear overly interested. "The _Ministry_," he bit out distastefully, "extended the use of Aurors for Potter."

Severus didn't need to include that the Ministry had sent Aurors for Granger, too. Their excuse was Potter, but they were slowly and quite ineffectively attempting to acquire Hermione's forgiveness before she made any decision about what she would say to her classmates, what she would allow to get out to the press. Draco didn't honestly think she'd care too greatly. Lucius Malfoy had already done his worst on her, had already humiliated and destroyed not only her body, but her well-earned reputation as well, for she would never again be known as Potter's best friend or the brains of the (so far) Triumphant Trio – she would forever be known as the girl who was tortured.

"There," Narcissa nodded in the general direction of the ominous crowd of Aurors.

Draco was not excited to see her, was not looking forward to the awkward confrontation that they were bound to have – even if it were not right away, she was too much of a Gryffindor to let it fly to the winds; she would thank him, he thought.

"She looks well," Snape offered coolly.

Draco knew that his head of house was looking the girl up and down for scratches, taking note of every single scar that marred her delicate skin, and Draco knew that if there were ever an added mark to the ones that were already in existence, some poor soul would suffer his godfather's wrath. Not a pretty thought.

He himself could hardly keep from looking at her. It wasn't the nervousness that captivated him, nor was it her obvious distaste for being stared at. She looked skinny, like she hadn't gained any weight at all since he'd left her at St. Mungo's. And her skin looked healed, but her eyes appeared entirely too haunted to fit on such a face. He couldn't say that he'd taken any notice of her eyes before – they weren't a unique color, just brown – but he was sure that if he had ever seen such a broken gaze he would have noticed it before.

He could not find it in him to agree with Snape. She did _not_ look well.

Draco wondered if this would help or hurt the images he kept of her, if it would diminish and replace them or simply add to them. He not only had the vision of the physical pain, but he was also now bothered by her emotional pain. He somehow doubted that this would mend his shattered sleeping patterns.

"Be well, Draco," Narcissa said to him softly.

The cringe that wracked through him could not have been stopped. He did not like the gentle reminder that he was _not_ well, and he certainly didn't like the silent sympathy his mother handed to him. It had been weeks since he had 'rescued' Granger from her terrible fate, and it had been weeks since he had given any indication of how he felt about the matter. It was unpleasant to be reminded of his obvious show of pain and horror those first nights, and he had worked damn hard not to allow the anger, the terror, the absolute _fury_ and his unrelenting shock to exhibit itself again.

That behavior was unacceptable and he would suppress it if it were the very last thing he did. He might feel all of those things, but not another soul needed to know of it.

**/**x**\**

If Hermione had any illusions of getting through the station with her head held high and her body held straight, she had been seriously delusional at the time. She was seconds, mere _moments_ away from a fit. People were looking at her, but that didn't matter. The cluster of Aurors surrounding she and her friends – _my family_, she corrected herself robotically – were making her beyond nervous, the furtive glances they kept sending her were not appreciated, and she didn't think she could stand another brush against Ginny's trunk.

She gulped in air, took it in whatever short gasps she could grab hold of. She could do this. She _had_ to do this; she couldn't simply decide to not turn up at the Welcoming Feast. So she had to breathe. Her fit could wait until they were on the train, where there were fewer people to watch her. Her friends would be horrified but she doubted she'd be able to escape from them, and even then where was she to go? There would be no privacy to be found on the Hogwarts Express, and she couldn't very well hop off and skip to her room.

A sharp stab of fear punched through her veins. She'd be trapped, she'd be locked in, she'd be forced to stay put. Oh no. No, no. She couldn't do this. Who the hell had she been kidding? They thought she could go to _school_? How would she avoid being touched _there_? How could she possibly walk through those halls with so many students – _God_, so many people!

She couldn't breathe. She needed air, she needed – she didn't know what she needed, but she sure as hell knew that it was far away from this platform. And – _Jesus how had she forgotten Malfoy?_

She had prepared herself for this, had readied herself for the dread and absolute panic, but she had forgotten about _Malfoy_ and he was staring at her and Snape was there and so was his mother and oh _God_ he looked like his father and she didn't think she could handle that. She couldn't handle that, she was too unhinged, too afraid and he simply looked like a bloody replica of the elder Malfoy and –

"Merlin, Hermione!" Ron exclaimed to her quietly. "You're pale as snow!"

"I'm fine," she gasped. "I – I'm perfectly fine."

Fuck _no_ she wasn't _fine_. She wanted him to shut up before someone else took more notice, wanted him to drop it, wanted him to be his usual oblivious self, wanted him to forget her terrified face and the tremors that erupted down her spine and flowed through her bones.

Ron looked unsure – entirely hesitant – but he took her at her word and kept looking at her in his not-so-subtle way, should something happen. She thanked the stars that he took today to listen to her, but that was probably not luck. Anyone could look at her and tell that she was not fine, that she was scared witless, but what could they do? Nothing. There was nothing to be done because she was doing this to herself.

Had the train ever looked quite so foreboding? Had she ever wished not to step onto the glorious, plush carpet that simply beckoned her over the threshold? She was sure she had never been this afraid in her entire life. She didn't _want _to be locked in there, she _couldn't_ be. She couldn't be locked anywhere. There were lots of doors, a lot of space, but she'd be _shut in there_! She wouldn't be able to get out!

"Now, you kids have a good trip, and we'll see you at Christmas, yes?" Mrs. Weasley tried so hard to make it normal, to make it look as though Hermione weren't on the verge of collapsing into a trembling mass of tears and haggard breaths. She couldn't focus on the woman's words and winced furiously as a quick memory of Lucius backhanding her for her inattentiveness jogged through her mind.

She kept her eyes averted downward, counted the number of times she heard trunks bump over the ridges on the stone beneath her, tried not to count the number of shortened, strangled gasps she heaved in.

"Hermione? We'll see you at Christmas?" Hermione knew it was meant to be comforting, but she phrased it as a question as if she knew that Hermione wasn't all there and was looking for her to give a response.

A jerky nod was all Mrs. Weasley received.

She couldn't speak – _hell_, she couldn't breathe, could hardly shuffle one foot in front of the other, and refused to look at the scarlet mass before her until there was no possible way of avoiding it.

"I love you," Mrs. Weasley said quietly.

If Hermione had been in the correct frame of mind, she would have responded in kind, would have shown the Weasley matriarch how much love she stored for her and how grateful she was for everything that she had done for her. In her current state of mind, however, all that Hermione could manage was a very miniscule smile, and that vanished rapidly as the Aurors began to break form to allow the four kids onto the train.

There had never been so many people looking at her before, never been so many pitying glances or sympathetic gazes or satisfied smirks from the Slytherins. They hadn't ever paid her any mind.

She had never been more scared in her life.

"Get her on the train," Mrs. Weasley's voice shook with the command, her hands gripped onto Ron's forearm with such intensity that her nails carved half-moon dents into his flesh. He winced but nodded, aching to reach out and press Hermione's back forward to get her moving, but knowing that it would do more harm than good.

"Harry," he muttered, nudging his mate and cocking his head toward Hermione.

Their black-haired friend understood, but was reluctant to attempt anything. He didn't know what was going on with Hermione, but he had never seen that look on her face before, had never seen his courageous, devoted lion quite so stricken.

"Hermione," he said sharply.

His voice did not help; it shook her out of her reverie, only to worsen it. Tears pooled up behind her eyes and she furiously blinked them away, took a small step back and began to shake her head.

"Hermione!" Harry called again, this time a tad more forcefully. "We have to get on the train now. It's okay."

_It's not! It's not okay! I can't go in there!_

"Potter, move," Snape had approached like the snake that he was, slithering his way through the crowds and striking the victim with nothing less than his strongest venom.

Harry frowned, "Sorry, _sir_. I didn't realize I was in your way."

Ginny shook her head at him, tears trekking down her face silently. "Don't do that, Harry. Not now. Not now."

Snape ignored them both and took a slow step toward Hermione, who seemed to take almost no notice of his presence here. "Miss Granger," he said softly, not exactly _warm_ but a definite change of course from his cool, sneering normal, "can you hear me?"

She could, she honestly could, she just wasn't listening to the words, didn't particularly care for human company. She didn't care for company at all. She wanted to leave, wanted to get away from the Hogwarts Express, the malicious train that seemed to take an unnatural pleasure in mocking her fears.

"Miss Granger, you need to step on the train," Snape encouraged.

Silk.

His voice was silk and soothing and slick and smooth, but his words were cruel and unwanted.

"No," she whimpered quietly. "No. I don't want to."

She recoiled away from him, a sharp flinch assaulting her, as though she feared he would hit her for denying him. Not an unreasonable fear, but still unpleasant to watch.

"Why not?" Snape asserted, as Molly Weasley ushered all of her reluctant children onto the train with Hermione's luggage and her cat. They did not need to be here for this, and she was sure that Severus would do what he could despite his dislike for the girl.

"Space," Hermione gasped out, breaths raspier and more ragged than ever. "No… no space."

"Miss Granger, I can assure you that the train will be as secure as it has always been and that you will arrive at Hogwarts in the allotted time."

"I can't – " Hermione broke of, pain reeling up her spine as the tremors finally gave way to the cramps and aches. She cried out softly, more from shock than pain, for she was almost numb to the physical pain, so absorbed she was in her terror.

**/**x**\**

She couldn't think, couldn't remember what had been happening before the jolt, couldn't remember what had happened after it. Professor Snape was there, and McGonagall said some words – Hermione recognized the frightened Scottish burr – but she didn't know what had happened or where she was.

A few blinks, and she could see. A few minutes and she could feel, and she didn't like that so much because the cramps hadn't gone away and her chest and lungs still felt too tight. She could breathe better, but it was clear that she was still having difficulties.

"Miss Granger?" Professor McGonagall whispered quietly.

Hermione struggled her way into a sitting position, frowned at her Head of House, and stared over the woman's shoulder for a long time trying to remember where she was or how she had gotten here.

"Are you – are you alright?" McGonagall choked.

It took a moment for Hermione to recognize the thickness in her voice and the water bending over her cheeks as tears. "Yes," she murmured guiltily. She didn't know how she got here, but she knew that it had upset her mentor, knew that she had hurt the caring woman once more.

Although McGonagall could clearly see that Hermione was much better than when she arrived, she could not stop the sigh of relief from revealing how worried she had been for her cub.

"Ah, good, good," another voice contributed. "You've awoken."

Dumbledore's tiny smile was hardly discernible to Hermione, because she was so adapted to the obviously benevolent front the headmaster put on. It made her a little sad to see it so diminished and discouraged.

"How do you feel?" McGonagall treaded.

Hermione shrugged, still attempting to catch her brain up. "Why am I here?" She asked finally, unable to piece together a story. "And where am I?"

"My dear, you are at Hogwarts," Dumbledore's grin was reborn at full strength.

"Severus helped you on the train," McGonagall said carefully. Severus had warned her that it might not be an approachable topic.

Hermione paled. She drew her arms together and scratched at them nervously. "The t-train? I – I went on the train?"

"Aye, the bloody train, lass," said another voice, an Irish brogue breaking through in the most obvious of ways.

This voice was foreign to her and she stiffened as she turned toward it, her heart pounding, beating against her chest wildly. She didn't like to be surprised anymore, she noted. She was claustrophobic and didn't like to be surprised, and it was Malfoy's fault.

She used to like small spaces – they typically meant nice reading retreats. And surprises used to be fun for her; she loved them to bits, to be honest. She couldn't even handle the surprise of a new person in the room; that wasn't fair.

"Hermione," McGonagall dropped the formalities in favor of familiarity, frowning at the man who intruded on their conversation, "this is Garret. Garret West."

Hermione admired his dark hair and blue eyes only long enough to give him a cursory nod and watch a frown break across his face. No doubt he was more adapted to long gazes of adoration. He was good-looking, but Hermione didn't particularly care for outsiders at the moment, and was absolutely terrified of males that weren't Potters or Weasleys or Dumbledores and _maybe_ a Lupin. And apparently Snapes.

"Miss Granger, there are a few things that I believe need to be discussed," Dumbledore seated himself in a chair to her left. "First we should go over what happened to you this morning. These episodes – I am afraid to say – will probably not be quite as rare as you would like."

He didn't need to tell her that; she already knew. She _knew_ how often they came, even at the Burrow. How was she to get through school?

"Certain events," Dumbledore paused, giving her enough time to wonder exactly where this conversation was going, "have made us realize that you might not benefit from your typical school environment."

Hermione looked to McGonagall to see if her eyes held any hints leading to what this was about, or to see if she approved or disapproved of the idea, but her countenance looked torn between support and displeasure, which did nothing for Hermione's frazzled nerves. "What are you saying, sir?"

"I feel that it might be best for you to receive your education privately," Dumbledore continued, his serene voice doing nothing to halt the shock of his words.

"I don't understand," Hermione murmured weakly. "You – you don't think I should be at Hogwarts any longer?"

She hadn't realized that they would consider such a thing – because it had been they who had invited her back, despite her insistence that she would not know how to navigate the halls peacefully and did not know if she could manage.

"No, dear child, of course not!" McGonagall expressed fervently, longing to reach out and stroke the hair from Hermione's forehead.

Relief.

She couldn't wash away the relief upon the words, but confusion was not far to follow. "Then what is it you mean?"

"We feel that it is in your best interest to continue your education here at Hogwarts, however in private rooms. This is not something to be ashamed of, my dear. You are exceedingly intelligent and it would be a shame to waste such a vast center of knowledge," Dumbledore winked. She mustered a weak smile, and nodded for him to continue. "It is clear that you would have difficulties settling into life at Hogwarts with such a large student body – not that you are to be blamed, of course. I feel that it would be near impossible for you to recover, were you to be surrounded by so many bodies. Particularly your peers."

It did not need to be said why he knew this; the stares were certainly not very subtle, and her extreme hatred of being touched was also very obvious. But Hermione also wondered if it were even _possible_ for her to recover. She hoped she could – no, she hoped she _would_, but fear seemed to be the dominant emotion to her right now, competing with her confusion.

"You, of course, would have pure jurisdiction over when you felt well enough to join your friends for classes and mealtimes. If you should never feel comfortable with it, then that would be splendid as well. Your friends would have full rights to visit whenever you wish them to, presuming that you are not learning at the time, of course," Dumbledore included finally.

"Visit?"

"I had assumed that a private dormitory might be better for your mental and physical wellbeing, but forgive me, Miss Granger, that choice is, of course, yours to make, just as the rest of my suggestions are," Dumbledore smiled again, eyes glimmering away in that manner that he always somehow managed.

Hermione tried not to feel as though she were being punished for some misdeed that she couldn't remember – logically, she knew that it only made the most of sense and she wouldn't have been able to map her way around the halls without driving herself half past crazy with panic. At the same time, the entire idea felt like regression, as if she weren't even going to try to deal with her peers, as if she weren't going to wean herself back to human touch. She could understand McGonagall's look of torn indecision, could understand that her mentor was hesitant because her thought process worked the same way that Hermione's did.

She didn't want to condemn herself to the sort of life where she hid away from everything she feared, where she would turn herself into a paranoid, female version of Mad-Eye Moody. But she was also smart enough to know that she clearly was not ready for classrooms and hallways packed with people, and especially not lessons with rogue spells, because she knew they would frighten her, knew they would reduce her to a shaking, crying mass, which would result in nothing good from her friends, and nothing civil from the Slytherins.

So, she should agree. She knew she should. There was no refutable reason for her to _dis_agree.

The feeling of utter failure did not suffice as a refutable reason.

"Okay," she said quietly. She would not look at them. She didn't think she could, really, because even if they were pleased with her decision, she was disappointed in herself enough to make up for it. She still _felt_ the shame, she couldn't _stop_ it.

_But what things in my life, lately, _have_ I been able to stop?_ Hermione added to herself, bitter and somewhat cynical.

"You will learn under me," Garret inserted, finally. The frown had not left his mouth, and Hermione wondered if there were more behind it than her apparent dismissal of his attractive features, because surely he could not still be upset over that.

"Yes sir," Hermione swallowed. She didn't know if she liked that. Hadn't she just established that there were a very limited amount of males in her life that she wished to be around for more than a few moments? And this man was to teach her? In _every_ subject?

"Now, Miss Granger, I expect that you wish to know the details concerning how you arrived here. I feel it might be best if we were to prepare you," Dumbledore's almost-frown-but-still-slightly-a-smile was back, and for the second time she decided that it broke her heart.

"What happened at the station?" Hermione asking warily. "I can't imagine it went very well."

"No, Hermione," McGonagall said softly. "No, it did not."

The young woman sighed and shifted on the blanket. "Please, Professor? I know what happened – or I can guess, anyway – up until the cramps started. After that I just don't remember."

"You fainted, my dear," Dumbledore said stoically. "A regular result of an anxiety attack, I assure you – that is what you were having, mind you, but your symptoms are complicated with the permanent after-effects of the Cruciatus Curse. Professor Snape levitated you onto the train with your friends and levitated you off the train and into your new rooms, at my request."

"These are my room?" Hermione was stunned. She had immediately noticed that the room was certainly not the infirmary, but it felt too large to be anything less than something belonging to a professor. She took a closer look and noted that the room was _not_ decked out in Gryffindor regalia, but was a soft powder blue, meant for comfort, Hermione was sure. She could see further outside the door to the furniture, which was nothing special. A table in a small kitchen nook, a sofa, a cozy-looking armchair, hordes of bookcases, and a desk where she could see that her schoolbooks had been placed.

"It felt rather like it suited you, my dear," McGonagall smiled. It was a short-lived thing, because Hermione could tell that this entire situation was painful for her to watch, but she appreciated it.

"Thank you," Hermione said sincerely. "I really, really appreciate the effort."

"But of course, Miss Granger," Dumbledore bowed. "Now if you shall excuse me, I must be getting to the feast. The students will be settled soon."

"Should you go, too, Professor?" Hermione asked of her Transfigurations instructor.

McGonagall exchanged a brief but significant glance with Dumbledore before she shook her head at Hermione. "I had hoped to discuss a few things with you and Garret, if you feel well enough for it."

**/**x**\**

Author's Note: Alright, so I hope I answered a few questions about getting around Hogwarts and so and such else. If there are questions or inconsistencies, I would appreciate being told of them. : ) I hope you all enjoyed the chapter. Do let me know if there's anything I can do to better the story for you guys! Please review!


	6. Grief

Laying in bed, Hermione decided, was about the only thing she could manage lately without causing either herself or her family and friends extreme amounts of pain. It made her sick to think of how stressed they had become, and all because of her, all because of her episodes, her fits, her attacks.

She closed her eyes and turned on her side, drawing her body closely together. Was this how life was going to be? Would she ever be able to touch again, or be touched without feeling afraid? Would she forever dream of Lucius Malfoy's chilled voice, of holding onto her sanity by thin, worn shreds of string? Would she ever be able to live the same?

Hermione very much doubted it. Maybe she would touch and be touched – with a lot of effort – but she would never stop dreaming of him, would never forget how near to death she had been or how much joy he had taken from her agony. She would certainly never live the way that she had. Those days were long gone by now, and she struggled to accept the concept of it.

Not for the first time, Hermione felt a longing for her mother. She wasn't sure if she would have been able to let her soothe her hair back, or to cradle her in her arms, but the memory of it was very appealing. The coolness that struck her spine was a harsh reminder that she would never feel her mother's touch or hear her father's low, comforting voice again.

_No,_ Hermione told herself. _Don't go there._

She wasn't ready yet, couldn't allow the loss of them to settle in her heart, and absolutely refused to try.

They weren't making it very easy for her to forget them, even if she had wanted to. Their letters, however unsettling they may have been, seemed to lay out a large part of the next few months of her life. She relied on them, perhaps foolishly, and could not stop herself from worrying again over exactly what she would become on her seventeenth birthday.

**/**x**\**

"_I understand," McGonagall began carefully, exchanging a small and furtive glance with Garret West before she ploughed forward, "that you will soon be coming into an interesting talent… a birthright, if you will."_

_Hermione stiffened, unsettled with anyone else knowing of her potential abilities – _abilities, _Hermione scolded herself, _that I'm not sure will even be mine. _"Professor?" She tried innocently. _

_Garret snorted. "You'd best not play ignorant, Hermione. I've heard it wouldn't do for you."_

_She winced at the accusation, and nervously clenched her fists together. "How did you find out about that?" She asked weakly._

_She was tired. She'd been tired for too long, had been walking around like a zombie for days. She hated it, hated Lucius Malfoy for doing this to her, hated the Ministry for not believing their claims at the end of her last school year that Malfoy was a Death Eater, for not stopping him when they had the chance._

_Oh, she was full of hatred, full of fear, full of depression. She couldn't pull happy emotions out of her heart, could find love only during the intervals between terror and anger and sadness. She hated how she acted, hated how she was, but she could do nothing. Her heart felt, and felt passionately exactly the way it wanted to, which happened to disagree with what the rest of her wanted._

"_I'm one of them," Garret answered stoically._

_She jumped. One of them? "You mean a demon?" She asked. "Element? Sorry."_

_Garret tensed and released his jaw at the mistake and shrugged his shoulders as if physically throwing the insult off of his back. "Yes."_

_She blinked a few times in confusion and stared again over the shoulder of her head of house. Her parents had said on her birthday, not on the first day of school, not this soon. She wasn't ready for it this soon. She didn't know if she'd be ready on her birthday, either, but not now, not without proper warning! _

_A sharp snap of fingers on her right side brought her back to the present, and she immediately curled into the familiar fetal position. The noise was not pleasant, was too loud. She closed her eyes and focused on regulating her breaths. Her back hurt terribly, she noticed suddenly, forced herself back to breathing exercises before she let the pain worsen the attack._

"_Hermione?" McGonagall was calling her, but she wasn't breathing steadily enough to answer her yet. She needed a minute, needed to calm herself. It helped that this time she knew what had caused the attack, knew that it had stopped, knew that it was her new professor's fingers and not the cracking 'pop' of apparition, but it was very similar and still jolted memories into her system._

_It was never a good thing when Lucius Malfoy Apparated into her cell, was never painless. She shook her head fiercely, vainly trying to force the images away. A knife gleamed, her breath heaved dangerously. A wand snapped out a curse, her body arched obediently and painfully. _

No_, she ordered. She blinked again, this time shaking off the too-clear images in her mind to focus on her surroundings instead. _

_She was gasping, sucking in air in a now-familiar fashion, intent on bringing her pulse back to a satisfactory level. It took a long time, too long in her opinion, but she had – for the first time – successfully shunned the dark pictures and thrown them backward, at least for now. It would haunt her later, she was sure, in her dreams, or whenever else the opportunity presented itself, but she was pleased with herself for now, pleased that she didn't have to watch the endless videos again. Not yet. Not now._

"_Hermione?" McGonagall tried again, worried, concerned._

"_She's better now," Garret offered quietly. "Lass?"_

"_I'm okay," she mumbled. "Sorry. I didn't mean to – "_

"_My fault," he interrupted. "Apologies for startling you."_

_He had not just startled her, he had unknowingly brought her back to Lucius Malfoy's company, and she shuddered now against the thought. Hermione thought it better not to tell him this, and nodded her forgiveness._

"_You're alright?" McGonagall sounded nothing less than incredulous. "Of course you aren't! You're exhausted – any fool could see that, Miss Granger. You have suffered two panic attacks in a single night and _of course _you're not alright!"_

"_Professor, I – "_

_McGonagall ceased to speak, ceased to move, and very suddenly lurched to her feet and began to pace. Hermione was too stunned to utter a comforting word or gesture, Garret merely appeared amused._

"_Miss Granger, I apologize for my outlandish behavior. I find it difficult to restrain myself with you, which is much outside of the norm for me," she said stiffly, a thick Scottish burr hugging her words. "I cannot bring myself not to care and will not deny wanting to know what Lucius Malfoy has done to you, however I know that I am far surpassing my boundaries as your head of house by asking and by assuming to know how you must be feeling."_

_Hermione frowned, shook her head slowly back and forth, and finally said, "Professor, I don't think it's outside of your boundaries to ask. I just – I can't… I _won't_ bring myself to talk about it. I trust you; I trust you as my head of house, I trust you as my professor, and my trust… it goes beyond that. If you'd like me to be perfectly honest – no, I'm not okay. I don't know that I ever will be, but I'd really," she shuddered here, "I'd really, really like to be."_

"_Just once," Garret muttered, "I'd like to walk into a room with women and not end up in the eye of a sentimental hurricane."_

"_Mr. West," McGonagall hurled at him darkly, "It was only at your insistence that you be here, if you recall. I had wanted to wait until she was recovered, to wait until she had rested; I should have been more insistent with you and will not make that mistake again. Please explain your purpose here, then _leave_."_

_It would take an army of the deaf, dumb, and blind to mistake McGonagall's dislike for this man, and Hermione was certainly not oblivious to the waves of disgust that radiated off of her Transfiguration professor._

_Garret West seemed to have realized that he'd been tactless and rude and he nodded, saying respectfully, "Apologies, Madam. Hermione, I was… _asked_," he settled after a moment on the word, although he did not look pleased about doing so, "to come to Hogwarts and make an offer to be your tutor. I was asked to become your tutor as an Element, not in your studies as a witch, although I have been roped into performing both tasks. Up until your birthday I am meant to train you in the martial arts, and if you become good enough, also with the blades, and come the nineteenth of this month, we will fuse that training with your training as an Elemental. I've come to understand that you are a very bright witch, and I hope it will be a pleasure to work with you during this time." He stood to leave, making for the exit, clearly sensing the unfriendly vibes from the elderly professor and not liking them._

_Hermione halted him with two desperate, pleading words, "My sister?"_

"_They didn't _tell_ you?" He snarled brutally._

_She visibly shrunk before them, her mouth sealing shut, her eyes widening in terror, her heart thudding a maddeningly hard beat against her chest._

_He calmed himself with a great deal of invested energy, and took a deep breath. "Hermione, I'm not going to hurt you."_

_McGonagall glared at him until he could feel the heat of it against his shoulder. He shrugged uneasily, and reverted to comforting the trembling girl. "It's alright, Hermione. I have no plans to harm you. I'm very angry, but not with you."_

_She urged herself to calm and drew in a heavy sigh. "I'm so sick of being afraid," she whispered shakily._

_Garret took that as a sign to continue. "Lainey died three months ago in a rough car accident."_

_Grief attacked Hermione's heart, picked at the weak and broken walls she tried to protect it with. She shouldn't feel this heartbroken, shouldn't feel this torn apart. She had never met her sister, had never been given the opportunity to know her. It was harsh and cruel of her parents to do this to her, to reveal the sister that she had never had and forget to mention that she had been taken away before she would ever meet her._

"_I see," she forced, working around the tears that blocked her throat._

No,_ she directed. _You've given them enough pain tonight. It can wait. It _will_ wait, damn it.

_Garret looked awkward and she knew that he wished he could be anywhere else in the world than here with her, telling her about her twin's death. "Thank you," she said thickly._

_He nodded and turned to leave, looking back at her once and shaking his head before he exited through the portrait hole._

"_Sh," McGonagall hushed her gently, and at some point Hermione noticed that the tears must have begun to fall, and she scraped at them viciously, furious with their presence. McGonagall hummed a soft Scottish tune that made her sleepy, but her back ached too much to try it._

"_I'm sorry," Hermione sobbed hysterically. "I've given you enough to worry about. You don't need this. I'm sorry."_

"_Quiet, my dear girl," McGonagall muttered, her hand reaching out and hovering only a moment over Hermione's head, as if preparing to tuck her hair back, but stopping at the last minute. "You worry me more when you are afraid than when you are sad."_

"_I never… I never met her. And my parents – " Another sob. That was why it hurt so much, she realized. Lainey had been a part of her family, a part of her parents, and, despite never meeting her twin, a part of her. It was akin to losing your belief in Santa Clause, that terrifying moment when you realized that you had been lied to all your life and had been foolish enough to believe it, and damn it, she _had_ believed it. She had believed that maybe, just maybe something _good_ could come from what Lucius Malfoy had done to her. That even if she had lost her parents, her innocence, her pride, she could still gain something out of it. It hurt that she had no grasp on that hope, that it had fallen from her fingers so effortlessly, that it left such a harsh sting to her already disintegrated heart._

"_Hush," McGonagall tried again, brushing her hand against the soft duvet that rested next to Hermione. "Hush, child. Rest."_

She'd fallen asleep to an old Gallic tune that she would have to remember to ask McGonagall about later. Her heart constricted and released at odd intervals as she thought back to her parents, her sister – all gone and far away from where she was. She felt horrendously alone, despite her new family's support; she ached to feel something other than pain, other than her hurt.

**/**x**\**

Minerva had never been so emotionally involved with a student's welfare before Hermione Granger. But after what Hermione had been through, after everything she had seen and had been forced to endure, was there a compassionate living soul who would feel nothing for the young woman's pain?

Hermione had always been a precious student of hers; what other reason would she have to fight tooth and nail to get the young thirteen-year-old a time-turner in just her third year? She had always trusted Hermione to do the right thing, to do the _Gryffindor_ thing. She had always trusted Hermione to keep a secret, to encourage Harry where he needed to be encouraged and to discourage him when he was being reckless without good reason.

But who, Minerva thought now, had Hermione trusted? Oh, her parents, sure… They lived apart, separated by hundreds of miles and by the barrier of magic and muggle, but Hermione had made it work, had made it so that she would not lose her parents as she grew into her magical abilities. But she wondered now how much Hermione had told them about her world, about the dangers of it, about how involved she was in it. She doubted that a woman as pure as Hermione would subject her family to that sort of pain.

And now? Now that her parents were gone, now that she was too terrified to attend her classes regularly, who did she have to trust?

_And why should she?_ Minerva thought darkly, swirling a glass of wine sullenly.

After how she had been hurt, after how she had been exploited and gawked at, why should she trust anyone? She was too pure to subject _anyone_ to the pain of knowing exactly what Lucius had done to her, and was too shaken up to subject herself to reliving it.

Minerva broiled at the thought of the man, churned with a strong desire to do unspeakable harm to him, and knew at once that she had never hated anyone as strongly and passionately as she did Lucius Malfoy.

_And the scars,_ Minerva thought with pain. _The damn scars._

Nobody commented on them; they were too cautious with her, to wary of how she would react to it to even attempt to ask about them, but it didn't take an extremely astute person to notice them. Every span of visible flesh was tainted, darkened with their presence. It made looking at her difficult, made it even harder to forget how much pain she had suffered. And they had only seen her arms.

She had been very careful to keep as much of her body concealed as possible, but she had had little choice during her stay at the hospital, and the gown had done nothing to hide the blatantly pale scars against her slightly tanned skin.

After her release, she had worn jeans, jumpers, robes, anything to keep herself blocked away from prying eyes, and Minerva knew that it was as much for their sake as for Hermione's own wellbeing. She didn't want people to know, she didn't want to answer to questions that she wasn't prepared for.

From the brief flashes of skin that Minerva had seen, she was surprised that the woman had not died in Lucius Malfoy's care, so large in number were her wounds. Some crossed, some formed patterns – a cold thing for Malfoy to do, a cold thing for _anyone_ to do. It showed how much he had enjoyed slashing her body, and Minerva winced at the thought of it.

She wondered a moment, thought to ask young Draco Malfoy what he had seen his father do to her, but she doubted he would tell her. And still a small part of her yearned to know, _needed_ to know what Hermione had suffered at his father's hand.

She stirred in her place only when a sharp knock resonated through her quarters, rustled to answer their call. "Severus," she said, surprised. It was not very often that the head of Slytherin house found his place at her portrait.

The dark, slim man pressed past her and closed the portrait behind him. Minerva took a moment to look at him and noted with a frazzled amount of confusion that he appeared not only furious but, beneath a thick outside shield that had taken her years to see past, he looked pained, damaged.

"Minerva, so help me if this conversation leaves these quarters," he warned, executed the words with just enough power to allow the fear to shimmer up Minerva's spine before she nodded her acquiescence.

Severus paced on the carpet in front of the fire that she had spent the past hour, maybe two brooding in front of, and she waited as patiently as she could for him to ready himself. Her nerves were on high alert, her mind ready to jump into action if it was necessary.

He collapsed onto her loveseat with little grace to the action, something that startled Minerva very much. She realized how deeply affected he was, and now wished more than anything to know what had affected him so.

"I have just come from a meeting with Draco," Severus said stiffly, in a tone that she recognized as his attempting-not-to-care-but-failing voice. "He allowed me to… _watch_, for lack of a better word, the night he was shown his father's dungeon."

Her breath hitched. Hadn't she wanted to hear this very thing, not ten, twenty minutes ago? Hadn't she longed to know? She suddenly had no desire to be told what Draco Malfoy had seen, suddenly no longer wanted to hear the despicable things the elder Malfoy had done to her prized lioness.

"I will not trouble you with the images," Severus said slowly, slipping his eyes closed, presumably to shield the onslaught of emotions from warring on his face. "Please," Severus looked up at her in a way that he had done only once before, several years ago, with desperation and unmasked horror, "tell me how she is, Minerva."

It surprised her that he could be so shocked at Hermione Granger's experiences with Malfoy after everything that Severus himself had seen and, she thought reluctantly, everything he had done. A shiver raced up her spine. Perhaps Malfoy had done worse things to her young Gryffindor than she could possibly have imagined before, because that was the only explanation for his unrivaled pain.

"Oh, Severus," she uttered softly, "was it really so terrible?"

Snape said nothing, avoided her eyes and stared into the fire with unseeing eyes. "Worse than I had imagined, Minerva."

And the short, would-be simple statement was anything but simple. She fought the need to cry, the need to break down in sobs on the floor and mourn for the loss of such an innocent girl's heart. She would not do that to Severus. She would not make him regret coming here, would not make him regret having said such private words to her. She cleared her throat instead, and said, "She is not well. You know she will not be touched, nor will she touch. She suffers through regular panic attacks at sharp noises, at anything that could possibly bring her back to… back to that heinous place. She covers her body, covers the scars; she doesn't wish to cause anyone else grief, and doesn't wished to be sympathized for. I've told you before and I will tell you again: the girl is pure. She worries over our reactions, worries over how many tears she causes us.

"Severus, I – I fear that she will grow to hate herself tremendously for it. I fear that she hates the pain she gives us to the point of hating herself for causing it. And she – Severus, she's miserable. She can't cope. Garret told her of Lainey's death today; she had been fragile, Severus, and she just broke. She sobbed and sobbed and – "

"Enough," he said, his voice cracking the slightest bit, a feat for his silken standard.

Minerva skimmed through all of her memories with Severus and realized that she had never once heard him sound anything so close to heartbroken, and it stunned her. Severus had never shown any inclination that he cared for Hermione, but he was a natural-born Slytherin. He could hide behind his insults to her and the scoldings he issued to she and her friends when they had done stupid things, and even if he had disliked or hated her then, Minerva was not foolish enough to think that things could not change. It would be reasonable for Snape to acquire a respect for her after what she had been through, and Minerva realized that respect might have driven him to concern.

She knew then that Severus must have realized just how pure Hermione had been, and how pure she still was, and had been hurt by her apparent brokenness, by the pain she had been through. She wondered if he might admit to such a bond, but she very much doubted it.

"I am aware that you are not her guardian, Minerva," Severus looked up at her again, a small portion of the shield restored. "I am fully aware. However, I wish to help her and I would very much appreciate your approval."

Shock and awe. She was struck by both. His admission, his request was so entirely unexpected that she simply could not process it properly. "How?"

"I do not know, Minerva," he said wearily, "but I would never forgive myself if I did not try."

**/**x**\**

Author's Note: Okay, so the twist with Lainey… well to be perfectly honest, I didn't expect or plan for it any better than any of you could. I hope you're not too greatly disappointed but I felt that I could form a better plot without her, and I felt that keeping her hear would leave too much to be introduced and would veer away from whatever plans I have with Hermione. If I have lost readers because of it, I apologize again, but once more I will say that once I have come up with ideas, I have to press them down, and nothing can really change it. **; )** Please review, even if you're disappointed with me. Try not to be too angry, please. **: )**

Oh yes, and as for the wait... I was on a ten-day vacation to Mississippi. I will say that updates may be fewer from here on because I start school next week, though. **: (**


	7. Unwanted

Harry Potter had never been a patient wizard. In fact, he was known for sporadic stints with untamed magic, for shouting at and hurting those who matter most to him when things did not go his way, and for putting foolish plans into action before taking the time to think it through.

He was not a boy of many admirable qualities. He was a boy with power, and a boy who knew it. He was not beneath using it to have what he wanted, but he didn't _like_ to. It just… happened. Only when he was really cheesed off, of course, but he could toss out a good hex or two if provoked.

Dumbledore was provoking, and Harry was primed.

Words were echoing in Harry's skull; logical words that had taken but a moment to curdle and warp into terrifying ideas. _Hermione. Quarters. Away from the Tower. Not a prefect? Alone. Unprotected. Separate meals. Not coming to classes? _Oh, it had been too easy to change Dumbledore's words and intentions, to make assumptions about Hermione's interests, to convince himself that he knew what was best for her, and that Dumbledore was mucking everything up terrifically.

"Professor, I realize that Hermione has been given her rooms for her comfort," Harry hissed between his grinding teeth, "but I don't think that locking her up without giving anyone else the key is safe, and I don't think it will help her get any better. And I don't think that eating away from all of us and having classes away from us will do her any good, either."

"Harry, mate," Ron muttered, nudging his forearm and leaning over to speak to him quietly, "did you see her? Scared stiff, she was. Maybe this could be good for her."

Harry had become a pro at ignoring the wise words of his friends. "If she's going to have her own dorm, fine, but I think at least Ron and I should know where it is. It's not as if she'd want to keep us out, anyway," he said matter-of-factly.

"Mr. Potter, Professors McGonagall, Snape, and I feel that this is the best course of action for Miss Granger's health. She is welcome to sleep in Gryffindor Tower and she is entirely aware of it. She is welcome to attend classes, attend meals, as she wishes. And she is more than welcome to direct you to her living quarters. _If she wants it_," Dumbledore stressed, wearily rubbing the bridge of his nose. "I will not have her privacy invaded once more, and not with something so miniscule as this."

"See?" Ron nodded at Dumbledore. "There you have it. Hermione's got the reins here."

"I don't like it, Ron," Harry frowned.

An hour later Harry stared up at his ceiling and begrudgingly admitted that perhaps he didn't like it because they wouldn't freely tell him, not because he really needed to know.

No, that sounded too awful.

He honestly _didn't_ want Hermione on her own, or where he and Ron couldn't get to her. He didn't like that she wasn't going to be a Prefect any longer, didn't like that she wouldn't be going to classes with them – and that was because he was worried for her and felt that they wouldn't see her as often, not because he was maddened by the idea of keeping secrets.

Harry took off his glasses and placed them on his nightstand, suddenly feeling much guiltier than he had been before. He fluffed his pillow and flopped over on his stomach, shoving his face into the cluster of captured feathers.

It wasn't that he felt like he needed to know _everything_… he just wanted to know anything that had to deal with him and his friends. Was that wrong? He had lost so many people; was it wrong to want to prevent the loss of another?

_And don't I deserve it?_ He added bitterly. _Everything I've put up with, all the lies I've been told. Don't I deserve to know the truth about the people closest to me?_

But maybe that wasn't the problem, either. He didn't just not like that Hermione was being kept away, or that she didn't intend to eat with them often or anything else that Dumbledore had told them about. He could place all of that over Dumbledore's head, and after the fiasco of last year, he would do it happily.

The only thing he couldn't hold Dumbledore accountable for was that he also resented the fact that Hermione didn't trust them – _him_ – enough to tell them what had happened to her.

He knew it hurt her, but didn't she know that it hurt him _not_ to know? Not to know why she was taken, or the full extent of the damage done? He could imagine well enough the things that a despicable man like Malfoy could do, but she had never once spoken of it. Had she been tortured often? Or did the scars come from one rough night in particular? Had she been raped, or would Lucius Malfoy refuse to touch her? Had he _shared_ her? And – he quivered – how many times had she been subjected to the Cruciatus curse?

_And why,_ Harry thought angrily, _would she not talk to me about losing her parents, at the very least? _Me_, who knows _exactly_ how that feels!_

**/**x**\**

Draco systematically dressed for class, relying on his body's ability to adhere to routine. His mind wasn't on knotting his tie or lacing his shoes.

Dark shades of blue and purple sagged under his eyes, confirming his severe lack of sleep, attesting to the awful things he had witnessed in only his darkest nightmares. It wasn't right for him to dream of her, not that way, not sprawled nude across the ground, blood and semen staining her bare flesh. It just wasn't right.

He couldn't doze off for a midday nap without the darkness of it chilling his insides, without the damaged and dispirited form of her ghosting past the insides of his eyelids.

He didn't like to think of her at all, never had. She wasn't his favorite person; the gods and all of Hogwarts were witnesses to how he had treated her for five years, of how he had daunted her, mocked her, ridiculed her.

And if this was karma… well, it truly was a bitch.

If this was his comeuppance for treating her cruelly, Fate had it out for him. He had never done anything to her that would amount to deserving this. He really hadn't. A punch in the face? Oh yeah, that he deserved, and he would admit it. But nobody deserved this. Nobody deserved to be haunted this way.

_And,_ Draco thought, wincing, _if this is the way I feel after watching one night – only _watching –_ how must she feel after an entire month of _feeling_ it?_

That was a humbling thought if nothing ever was – one that Draco wished had never crept up on him. He didn't want to think of the pale, shaky woman waking from such a dream in tears and hysterics, with the branded flesh that proved the reality of her blackest dreams. This wasn't fair. He'd done a good thing by telling Dumbledore and Snape, hadn't he? He'd done his share! He'd given the _Prophet_ their bloody story, had commented – if only briefly – on the subject. He'd even refrained from killing Weasley in the reception area, despite how tempted he'd been to decapitate him! Was that not enough to be acquitted? Would that not be enough to compensate for his pigheaded, childish misdeeds?

Growling with his irritation, Draco shoved his Potions and Arithmancy texts into his bag and slung it over his shoulder impatiently. It was beyond clear that his first day back at school was going to be a miserable event.

**/**x**\**

"I thought we might could take our lessons by the lake," Garret offered, scratching over the back of his neck awkwardly. "If you're up for it, that is to say," he added hastily.

Hermione nodded agreeably and selected the proper books from her desk, following him out of the portrait hole. It was odd, walking through the halls with no students around. Regular lessons had started a half hour ago, and Hermione had wistfully, if only for a moment, hoped to attend them. The thought had fleeted away as quickly as it had come with the rustle of the student body flittering through the castle.

Still, it did not help that Professor West was perpetually uncomfortable around her – which was admittedly her fault for sobbing and struggling through anxiety attacks all in one night.

"Professor?" Hermione asked, timid but pleased to be out and about in the cool morning air.

"Aye?"

"Are you really qualified to teach me?" It hadn't been the question she wanted to ask, but she couldn't gather the courage or strength to ask the man – the _professor_ whom she barely knew – if he'd known her parents or her sister. And she really had been wondering if he'd had the proper training to teach.

Garret shrugged indifferently. "Haven't a clue, to be honest. Your Headmaster seems to think I am, which is good enough for me, I suppose."

She nodded, staring down at her folded hands.

"I don't want to teach you today, lass," Garret said quietly, arms circled around his knees and eyes firmly rooted on the giant squid.

_This,_ Hermione thought, frightened, _is exactly what I've wanted to avoid._

"But – "

"I won't be asking you," he assured her. "I have some things to say about this before we get on with the rest of it. The man is a bastard for what he did to you and your family, Hermione."

She closed her eyes and battled the tears aching for release. "_Don't_," she begged.

Garret ignored her. "I need to say this, Granger. Plug your ears if you haven't a wish to hear it."

She didn't. Not because she didn't want to – oh, how she wanted to – but because doing so would make her afraid and, although she was afraid of many things, she could not wound her pride by refusing to listen to a professor who had something to say to her concerning it, concerning _him_.

"I can't fathom what he did to you, or how you've suffered your way on by, but I'll have you knowing that I respect that you kept yourself living that long, and that you fight to be living now."

Several deep breaths. That's all she needed. Just a few. It wasn't an attack, she just needed to calm down before it became one.

"I don't want to talk about it," she answered dutifully, a tad breathless.

"And I'll be respecting that from here onward," Garret informed. "You're alright."

It comforted her that he did not _ask_ if she was alright. Before this past summer it might have aggravated her – for how could he tell her how she felt? – but it soothed her to know that she wasn't uselessly fighting against the inevitable, that he could see that the breaths were helping and not worthless, that she was successfully warding off the panic.

Perhaps it wasn't such a great accomplishment. After all, she hadn't truly _been_ panicked, exactly. She'd just been upset, displeased, and maybe at the start a bit afraid that he would interrogate her, but he had squelched that fear himself before it'd had the time to manifest. She really had not done much.

Silence settled around them like a stifling cloak. Garret might have been content, but Hermione couldn't tell. The lake was peaceful and calm and pleasant to look at, but she was ill at ease. It was stupid, she knew it was stupid. West was a professor. A professor that Dumbledore himself had personally hired for her.

But she was _alone_ with him. The only person who could _maybe_ hear her if she was to scream was Professor Sprout, who was still a ways off in the greenhouses. It was unsettling and frightening.

She was being ridiculous, and overly suspicious and she knew it. But what the hell was she expected to do? Forget that Lucius Malfoy had been a man, forget that he had forced himself on her, forget that he had carelessly tortured her at the request his own fickle whims? That was dumb. Nobody expected that and she knew it, but she felt stupid for being so tense, too.

"Professor? Could you say something, please?"

"Pardon?" He responded, confused.

"The quiet… it's just uncomfortable," she answered, ducking her head down, humiliated. And that was only to put it mildly; it was uncomfortable, among thousands of other things. It was horrifying, and deathly, and left her imagining the hundreds of different ways that he could steal her away and maim her once more. She felt guilty for thinking it, but not a lick better.

Garret didn't ask for explanations, didn't ask why her hands shook even though she knew that he could see them. He spoke very softly and the sound was pleasant enough to soothe her, and eventually she was too curious about his – their – race to be afraid. "The Elements are a very old race," he said. "They've been around for as long as and perhaps longer than witches and wizards have. And just as there have been wizards that have gone bad, there have been Elements that go bad. It's more catastrophic with us, at least to the physical state of the environment. Hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, fires, earthquakes; you can imagine the sort of destruction I'm talking about, and the rubble left behind when the battle's finished.

"The Second Born Rule is a ridiculous theory set forth by the elderly Elements from hundreds of years ago. It was a particularly awful time to live in. By the time that the elders were near to passing away, there had been three Elements that attempted to rise above the community in their lifetime, and therefore three separate sites of accumulated destruction. There was a pattern to them; every one of them had been the second twin to be born. It matched up with some old journals that the elders' elders had written a century or so before them concerning the dark Elements Rapart and Dune. So they agreed on the speculation and never had the time to make it a law because the lot of them passed away. But it might as well _be _a law; the SBs – that's what we call the second borns – haven't been taught equally or given equal careers or anything else since their passing. Most of them either leave the village at the first opportunity or learn as much as they can and then try to take it to the elders to appeal it. It's hard to appeal something that doesn't technically exist, though, isn't it? And the truly sad part of this mess is that they'll continue to believe that bloody logic until one of the FBs starts a rebellion of their own."

"Are you a second born?" Hermione asked, after a period of silence had passed and she had absorbed what he'd said.

"Nah," Garret shook his head. "That was me sister, and I taught her everything I learnt anyway."

Sister? Well that was a shock. "I thought we were always born the same gender as our twins."

Garret smiled at the subconscious use of the possessive pronouns, at the fact that she had accepted that she was one of them. "Nope. We can be either. See, lass? This is what I asked to teach you, this was what I had planned to teach you. About the Elements and the elders and the dark Elements there've been in the past, about your people."

_He doesn't want to be here_, Hermione realized. _He doesn't _want_ to teach me._

"Professor?" She asked quietly. "Have I done something?"

"No, lass," he sighed. "The elders wish you to be kept from the village. I think it's a load of shit, personally, but there's not telling the elders off once they've made their minds. I was not asked to come here; I asked them if I _could_ come here. They would've treated you horribly, you must understand."

"I'm beginning to," she murmured reluctantly.

'_Other than their absurd theory they are a very civilized race.'_ Wasn't that what her father had said of the Earthly Elements? And how can one have so civilized of a race when such a large part was so foolish?

"Come," Garret said finally. "We shall learn today, or I shall be fired," he teased.

**/**x**\**

Ginny frowned. Lavender and Parvati were whispering again, loudly and without a care for who would overhear them. And they were gossiping over the unidentified man seated at the Head Table, between Sprout and Snape.

"Harry and Ron said that Hermione's got a new teacher… maybe that's him," Parvati said and giggled as she looked up to the Head Table and the young Irishman.

"Pity," Lavender added with a grin, "as I doubt she'll be appreciating the charms of the Irish in the seeable future."

"Shut _up_," Ginny snarled finally, throwing her fork down and drawing the attention of those nearest to her. "Are you really that shallow? That _cruel_? How can you possibly _joke_ about what happened to her? You – you can't possibly have seen her and feel content to jest over it."

Pale and shaking through her anger, she stood and tossed them a glance of pure contempt, of unrivaled fury as she stalked past them.

She would not admit to how very close she had been to hexing both of their ears off, of finding some sort of way to make them stop speaking. _Everyone_ had not seen the pictures of Hermione in the _Daily Prophet_. Many parents had endeavored not to allow their children to see, because it was too awful, too bloody, too unsightly.

But every man, woman, and child over the age of eleven knew, and knew bloody well that Hermione had been irrevocably and irreparably tortured and used by Lucius Malfoy. And were people truly so cruel as to mock it?

Ginny leaned against the wall and slid down it. She had seen battle once, had felt the high of danger, and the rush of destruction, had recklessly ploughed through it with a string of curses flying from her tongue before she'd been given a moment to understand what she was saying. Only one battle. She had no right to say she had seen the terrors of war… but Hermione had. Damn it, Hermione had lived it, breathed it, suffered it, and was still enduring it, and they had the gall to _jest_ at her expense?

She couldn't fathom it, didn't want to understand. Could they not see that Hermione was the finest example of what this war would bring?

"Ginny?"

_Not now,_ Ginny wished frantically. _Not now._

"Ginny, are you alright?" Hermione fell to her knees beside her friend, her breathing heavy and her mind spinning. "Ginny?"

"I'm fine, Hermione," Ginny tried, quickly soothing her friend's obvious terror. "I'm alright."

"Why – " Hermione stopped to tug air into her lungs. "Why aren't you in the hall?"

"I was… upset," Ginny explained vaguely. She had not realized until the sudden lack of warmth on her shoulder that Hermione had rested her hand there, had tried to comfort her with a touch, even as she panicked and struggled to control her pants. "I'm okay."

"Come on," Hermione muttered, looking around them. "Dinner will be finished soon."

Ginny stood with her, and followed her to a small passageway on the fifth floor. "So these are your rooms?" Ginny asked when the portrait finally swung open at the mumbled password that Hermione gave it.

Hermione hummed a positive response and gently set her bag over the desk, moving toward the kitchen to make tea.

"You know, Harry's in a right fit about these rooms," Ginny told her.

With slightly shaking hands, Hermione asked, "Is he?"

"Hermione?" Ginny asked quietly. "I know you – you aren't up to talking about what happened… I won't ask you about that. But – but if I asked about the after-effects, would it be alright?"

"They kind of go together, though, don't they?" Hermione rebutted softly, and handed Ginny a cup of tea. She didn't say anything until she'd seated herself on the sofa, until she'd cloaked herself with a quilt, patterned with the Gryffindor lion. "According to the healer at St. Mungo's, I'll have to bear regular cramps in my back and tremors through my bones whenever I become stressed."

That wasn't what Ginny had meant, and she was fairly sure that Hermione knew it. She'd wanted to know the emotional effects, the attacks, the lack of sleep, but she would settle. She would have to.

"How upset is Harry?"

Ginny answered with everything Ron had told her about their meeting with Dumbledore, and then from everything she'd seen herself. And when she left Hermione's portrait, she firmly decided not to tell Harry and Ron that she had come at all.

**/**x**\**

Author's Note: Alright, so I managed one more before school starts because I feel like it may be a while before I can get around to posting another chapter. So, this is the start of school, a little information on the Elements, and then some more about how everyone else is doing.


	8. Progress

Draco could not have said why, could never explain to anyone why the lack of Hermione Granger's presence irked him.

There were some days when it terrified him that she wasn't there, terrified him to think of what could be happening to her at that very moment. It would have been enough to horrify anyone, but especially him. Especially because he had seen what _had _happened to her, had watched his father's wand lash out without an ounce of pity, had cringed at the sight of the newly sharpened blades that his father used to abuse her with.

He frowned at himself and anxiously tapped the tip of his dry quill against the desk. He shouldn't be thinking of her, not anymore. He'd been through the details over and over; wasn't that supposed to be therapeutic? He wasn't suppressing anything. Hell, he'd even pounded his pride down long enough to talk it over with Severus. He shouldn't be thinking of it, at the very least not this often.

"Draco," Pansy snapped, ripping the quill from his grasp. "Stop that. It's distracting."

_Of course it's distracting,_ Draco sneered silently. _That was the point._

Class was dismissed a moment later, and Pansy pouted when Snape told her that she would not be granted time to finish the test. Draco heard her whining to Millicent Bulstrode, but lacked the energy to roll his eyes. He was staring at Snape, instead.

When all of Draco's classmates had left, Snape closed the door and waved Draco to his desk. "Something I can help with?"

He didn't know. He had no idea what he was thinking, no idea what he wanted to say, no idea what he _needed_. He just couldn't stand to think of her, to remember it, but what could stop that? He doubted anything could, doubted anything would ever take away the shock of it. "Can I see her?" Draco blurted out.

Where the hell had that come from? Hadn't he already established at Platform 9 and ¾ that seeing her had done him no good? Hadn't he already thought that if she saw him it would remind her too much of his father and would harm her emotional stability? Had he forgotten all of that? What the hell was he thinking?

_And isn't it ironic,_ Draco thought wryly, _that I had thought she would be the one to first make contact with _me_?_

He hadn't noticed the miniscule look of weariness and worry that had trembled over Severus' features, warring with the need to cover his emotions. He hadn't been paying attention to the slight downward tilt of his mouth, or the tiny crease between his brows that gave away his concern.

And that was probably just how Snape would have had it.

"I'll see what I can do for you," he said. "But this isn't up to me, entirely. Even Potter and Weasley haven't seen her since the incident on the platform. Dumbledore thinks it is best – and I agree – that she decide what she is comfortable with."

"Of course," Draco cleared his throat. "Thank you."

_She's never going to agree,_ Draco thought. _And why the hell should she? I wouldn't want to see me, either._

Disgusted, he tossed his bag over his shoulder and trekked out to the greenhouses.

**/**x**\**

Severus watched with growing irritation as Minerva frowned and then shook her head. "I don't know if that's possible to arrange, Severus."

"Oh for Merlin's sake, woman, you could at the very least _ask_ her," he snarled back.

"And so easy that is for you to say," Minerva snapped, standing and pacing the window. "It's so easy when you haven't had to watch her recoil at every mention of the summer holidays, when you haven't watched her flinch at the sight of a drawn wand intended only for good purposes, when you haven't seen her stare at her very own wand from across the room with a look of recognition and hatred and contempt, when you haven't seen how she cries and kicks and screams as she dreams at night."

Chastised, Severus rubbed his forehead tiredly. "Please understand," he said quietly, "that I do not mean to harm her further. Please understand that I, too, am in a rather complex situation. Please understand that I have Draco's welfare to be concerned with, as well. He does not sleep, Minerva, or at the very least he dreams of her in a dark dungeon, bloody and broken. And – he told me once – he dreams that instead of saving her, she has been killed. And sometimes he dreams that he is the one to have killed her."

Minerva was quiet for a very long time, but the unmasked agony was plastered over her face. She didn't know what to do. She felt sorry for Draco, and yet still unwilling to cause Hermione further pain.

"If she says no," Minerva whispered, "or if she so much as stutters over her assent, he will not see her. Is that understood?"

"Thank you," Severus responded. "Thank you, Minerva."

**/**x**\**

Hermione tried to move, tried to shift just a little, but groaned in pain and curled inward, curled her body together to alleviate the ache.

It didn't work.

She shouldn't just lie here, shouldn't just give in this way. The healers had told her that this would happen, had told her that the potion they'd given her would do everything it could. But they still told her that it wouldn't last long and that it wouldn't even do very much for her anyway.

And she couldn't blame them. So few people had to suffer through the true effects of the Cruciatus, and even fewer had to suffer from the repercussions of extended exposure to it.

She cried out as another pain shook through her, reaching out to her entire body through her limbs, her spine, her muscles. Even her heart ached, roared loudly in her ears.

By habit, an automatic action, Hermione began to count. She counted the raindrops that hit against her window, she counted the number of times Crookshanks' nose touched her arm, her face, as if offering a comfort and checking if she was okay.

She tried to soothe him, but it came out as a scream instead, a scream that echoed through her room harshly, and Crookshanks jumped in response, but mewled softly and curled around her back, offering warmth but no relief. She couldn't move; she had managed to lift her hand before, could only scarcely twitch her leg, but it simply hurt too much to try to move now. She couldn't touch her frightened familiar, couldn't scrounge up the energy to look for the potion and was not compelled by the thought of it not working anyway.

She shouted again as another wave rushed through her. This was worse than the Cruciatus curse, this was stuff that belonged only past hell's gates, and still yet only in the devil's nearest company.

Her fingers ached to curl into the blankets, to relieve the pain, but she couldn't move them. It was far more painful if she moved.

**/**x**\**

Crookshanks was distressed.

He knew his human was hurting, because she yelped and mewed loudly, and she tried to scratch the sheets. And she wasn't moving.

He tried to pet her, he pressed his nose to her nose, and usually when he did that she talked to him and said soft things to him. She made him feel better. But she didn't answer him, and that worried him.

He leaped from the bed to the floor and paced between the stretch of the bed and the door. He didn't want to leave her, but he couldn't help her. She needed a human.

But what human could he trust with _his_ human?

It was a troubling thought.

He knew well enough how to distinguish between the small humans and the 'professor' humans, so that limited his choices some. He did not want an inexperienced kitten to tend to his human.

The human in black was not friendly, he recalled, and his human was frightened of him sometimes. And the one that sometimes took his human to the lake for lessons was hard for Crookshanks to read, but he didn't like that one at all. He remembered that Hermione sometimes said nice things about the human with the biscuits, and she always fed Crookshanks snacks late at night. And she was sometimes a cat, too.

He looked back at the bed and meowed softly, and he scattered across the room. He had to push really hard on the portrait door, but it opened for him and closed when he had managed to get out.

Crookshanks padded quickly up a few sets of stairs and was forced to stop and orient himself a few times after the stairs had moved around. He had to move quietly, because he didn't want the stupid redhead and the one with the scar and a mean temper to see him; that would be no good for his human. She didn't want them in her room, yet. She told him so.

The portrait to the human-cat's room was closed, so Crookshanks extended his claws and scratched at the bottom, meowing loudly and hoping she would come quickly. His human was hurting really badly.

**/**x**\**

Minerva was at first confused by the scratching at her portrait. She knew that Hermione's cat had a habit of sneaking out, and Minerva had a fondness for both the cat and his mistress. But he only ever came to her portrait at night, and it was the middle of the day.

She hurried to the door and frowned at the unnatural urgency that permeated from the cat. He meowed at her again, jerking her into consciousness. He turned and sped down the steps, looking back to be sure that she was following him.

She did.

As she had suspected, and very much feared, the cat led her to Hermione's chambers. She uttered a quick password and rushed inside, startled by the shouts that she heard.

"Miss Granger!" She called out worriedly.

Hermione didn't answer, unless her shrieks were counted. Minerva remembered what Albus had told her about the pains, about what the healers had told Hermione, but she'd never thought it would be this hard to watch, or that it could possibly be that painful. She had seen and suffered through the Cruciatus curse herself, but this was not it; if possible, this appeared worse.

And Hermione wasn't moving, but for her mouth as it cried out and expressed her pain.

She moved to the kitchen at a rush, aware of Crookshanks following her, as if to protect Hermione since she could not do it herself. She had never seen a cat so in-tune with its human.

Minerva rattled through cabinets and drawers until she found a blue bottle with a label on it that read '**for the pain**' and poured the necessary amount into a small cup that she struggled to find. She found another bottle, this one green, that said '**sleep – use it**' and she did not doubt for a moment that Hermione had never touched either bottle.

She swept back to Hermione room and – after realizing the she had to touch the woman in order to administer her relief – she warily and unwillingly rolled her onto her back, cringing at the high decibel that the scream had reverted to, now not only in pain, but from being touched and being forced into experiencing _more_ pain.

Minerva hurriedly coaxed her into swallowing the first potion, and gave the second one to her a moment after.

A minute or two later and the shouts had died down, the woman limply falling into a potion-induced sleep that Minerva knew she wouldn't come back from for a good eight or so hours.

Shocked and concerned, Minerva stumbled her way into Hermione's living area and curled up on the armchair. Crookshanks came to join her and jumped into her lap, pressing his paws to her shoulders and butting his face to her cheek. She knew it was his way of thanking her.

Never had Minerva ever seen something so heartbreaking, so painful. It stung even deeper because it was Hermione, because this was her very favorite student, because she knew the woman on a closer level than she had ever known another pupil. It was akin to being witness to the pain of a daughter.

_But_, Minerva thought, aching suddenly for a brandy, _that was not just pain._

That was torture, and one of the very worst sorts.

She couldn't think straight. In fact, she didn't know that she wanted to think at all. This would haunt her until her very last days of life. And she suddenly had a newfound respect for Draco Malfoy.

**/**x**\**

"_Come, mudblood," Lucius cackled, "just a tiny bit of information?"_

_She didn't answer, couldn't answer, and he knew it. He knew she could not say anything through the pain._

_Suddenly exasperated, he flicked his wand lackadaisically, and bent beside her. He snatched her chin into his grasp, gripping her roughly enough that she knew it would bruise, and spat in her face. "You will answer me, you filth!"_

Get away from me! _She sobbed mentally. She would never say it aloud, would never let him see that desperation, but she felt it. It was strong, and unrelenting, much as his body was as it climbed atop her._

_Frightened and worried, she stared at him with a look of fear so strong that she knew it would not escape his notice. He grinned at her suddenly. "Is the little mudblood a virgin? Hm?" He asked, jerking her face to ensure that her eyes locked on his. "Are you untouched?"_

_She didn't answer. She hadn't spoken to him once since she had been taken and she wasn't about to start now. God, she was afraid. She was afraid of him, afraid of his wand, afraid of the knives that huddled in the corner, glinting softly and threateningly. He hadn't touched her with one of them yet, but she knew it wouldn't be long before he did._

"_Do you know why you're still a virgin, Granger? Hm? It's because you're _scum_. No man with any sense would touch you," he explained as the button on his pants was unclasped. "Not with the intention to bring you pleasure, anyway. And don't you worry, mudblood. I've plenty of sense."_

_She cried out sharply when she felt him press into her, and sobbed through the entire ordeal, but she never once begged, never once gave in to what he wanted._

_When he was finished, he smirked at her and lifted his pants again, throwing his robes around his shoulders. "You'll cave eventually, Granger. Mark my words, you'll cave. And until you do, I'll pleasure myself with your useless body and show you pains you've never even _dreamed_ of."_

Hermione groaned when she awoke. Her back was in so much pain, and the ache in her other ligaments and limbs had yet to go away, too, but she was capable of moving now. She didn't have to scream.

The rain still splattered against her window. She remembered counting the drops, and tried to remember how she had fallen asleep through such a pain. And she remembered McGonagall, her mentor, rolling her over with an expression of absolute guilt and thrusting potions into her mouth.

_How many times,_ Hermione thought to herself with a sneer, _am I going to hurt the people I care about with these stupid attacks?_

Not without intense measures of pain, she stood, slightly hunched over, and treaded into the living area. She was startled to find McGonagall asleep on the plump armchair, Crookshanks resting on the arm and glancing over at Hermione.

"Crooks," she murmured quietly, "come here."

The cat obeyed, slowly circled around her feet and rubbed his body against her legs, as if to embrace her. She picked him up and carried him to the small kitchen. When she set him down to rest, she began to make tea, unsure of what to do in such a situation.

Armed with two cups and a sweet, very pudgy cat, she called her professor's name several times until she began to stir. "Professor?"

Hermione wondered how rare of a sight it was to witness drowsiness, concern, and care wash over McGonagall's face, but she was touched. Professor McGonagall was not her mother, was not even her guardian, but she did care for the older woman, and she did confide in her many things that she would never think to speak of with Harry or Ron.

"Professor," she said again, "I've made tea."

McGonagall blinked, and then nodded, offering a very slight smile as she accepted the cup. "How do you feel?"

Hermione shrugged. She didn't want to lie to her and say that she felt fine, because she didn't, but she was clearly feeling better. "I'm alright," she paused for a long time. "Thank you, Professor."

**/**x**\**

Minerva frowned as tears wavered in Hermione's eyes and she perpetually shoved them backward. "Sit down, Hermione," she said carefully.

"No, I – I'm okay. Really, I am," she said, although her voice shook and a tear or two escaped from her tight clutches. "I just – I just need a minute, I promise."

"It's alright," Minerva soothed, standing to offer her seat to Hermione, who reluctantly took it and curled up into her natural distressed position. It tore at Minerva's heart, but she kept calm and muttered soft words to her former student.

"I'm sorry," Hermione said, comforted slightly. "I keep doing this to you. I'm sorry."

"Hermione, I understand that this is difficult for you. And it is very clear that you understand that this is difficult for us, as well," Minerva hurried to finish when Hermione face expressed pure agony. "But you must also understand that we, like you, are doing our best. We wish only to help you, Hermione."

"I wish you wouldn't," Hermione muttered, looking into her cup of tea, distraught. "I hate that I keep upsetting you, all of you. I hate that I can't seem to do anything without troubling someone."

Minerva sighed, thankful just a little bit that Hermione was finally opening up to her, or to someone, just this very small amount. "I imagine that even the strongest of warriors would hate that as well. But imagine yourself in our place – imagine that it was Miss Weasley instead of you. It would pain you, probably, to watch her in such a state, and still you would help her. And it would not be burden to you, Hermione. We worry for you, yes, but you are _not_ a burden, nor a trouble."

Hermione blinked at her once, twice, and then she weakly reached a hand up to her head. "I know you're right," she said quietly. "I know that I would do exactly as you are doing, but all of you are going so out of your way to help me, and I just… I hate that I hurt you this way."

Minerva didn't know how to respond, didn't know if there was a correct answer, didn't know what Hermione wanted to hear. But truly, what was there to say? What could she possibly say that would relieve Hermione of such atrocious thoughts? She _was_ hurting them, but it was nothing that she could have prevented, and nothing that she should feel so horribly for. The blame lay with Lucius Malfoy, and he alone.

But she couldn't say _that_ to Hermione; she didn't wish to hear of, talk about, or think of Lucius Malfoy unnecessarily, and Minerva could never blame her for that.

"I've a question, but you mustn't feel compelled to answer with a positive response," Minerva said warily. Maybe this wasn't the right time, maybe she should wait – but she wanted to cease causing them pain, didn't she? And she might be able to assuage young Mr. Malfoy's pain, if only a little. And still Minerva hated to ask this of her, when she knew it could give Hermione only bad thoughts, bad memories, bad feelings. "Draco has mentioned to Professor Snape that he might wish to see you, if you were comfortable and well enough to consider it."

Hermione froze, and the cup in her hand shook slightly. She nodded a moment after and stood up, walking quickly to the kitchen.

Minerva frowned. She had hesitated, but she had agreed, and then had avoided further communication. She wondered what had gone through Hermione's mind, why she felt that she must see him, even when she knew that it would give her only grief. Minerva could see that by her posture, her shakes, her stiff movements.

She admitted that she had pressed her luck tonight, both by insisting that Hermione speak of her situation and by asking her to visit with her torturer's son. Minerva would not further invade Hermione's privacy by asking what she was thinking now, partially because she did not wish to give the woman further anguish, and partially because she wasn't sure that she wanted to know anyway.

**/**x**\**

Author's Note: I know this took a while, and this is your warning: updates from here on out will more than likely be similarly spaced. I have three AP classes this year which require a lot of work and a lot of effort, and I am going to be involved in at least three clubs. Between school, homework, volunteer hours, sleep, and small periods of relaxation, I will write what I can. Please don't be too angry with me!

To relate to the chapter, I hope you enjoyed it. I tried to introduce the next chapter by including that Hermione will (finally!) be meeting with Draco, so that should be something to look forward to.

Thanks to Zencry for inspiring this chapter in a very roundabout way, by asking me about Crookshanks! **: )**


	9. Untouchable

Hermione sat on her hands to mask the shakiness in them. She had taken a potion – very reluctantly – ten minutes prior to take the edge off of some of her pain, but it failed miserably, failed just as the healers said it would. She forced herself to stay put, but could not force away the incessant urge to count, as she now tended to do when she was stressed.

_It's the only way to be fair,_ Hermione reminded herself.

She couldn't very well allow Draco into her rooms before Harry and Ron ever knew where they were, before they had spoken to her. But the difference was that while she might be forced into discussing her summer with Draco, she certainly would not relay it to Harry and Ron.

They were her friends, yes, and they were worried for her, but she also knew that they were angry, that they were restless, that they _did_ wonder what had happened to her, and she felt no inclination to inform them.

She did not want them to know, did not want to share with them. It would do nothing good for them, especially Harry – because it would make Harry rash and unreasonable, because Harry would search for a way to exploit any of the Death Eaters, any of Voldemort's lackeys, and that would be disastrous.

Hermione felt guilty and stupid for hoping that she wouldn't have to speak with them. They were her friends; she shouldn't feel that way, shouldn't keep wishing for things to have been different. They _were_ her friends, and she did love them… but seeing them, seeing anyone made her cautious, made her uneasy and scared and ridiculously anxious.

It wasn't as if this were the first time she had seen them since she had been recovered; she had seen them for the remainder of the summer. They had seen her after she had been beaten, raped, slashed, and ultimately abused. But they had not actually seen any part of the torture she suffered on the inside until that day on the train station, and this was the first time she had seen them since then, the first time she would have to speak with them.

Garret had offered to stay with her and Hermione had quickly and without hesitation declined. McGonagall had offered to stay and Hermione had seriously considered it, had debated over allowing her head of house to stay with her, but had finally decided that that would put Harry and Ron immediately on their guard, had decided that it would not do any good for anyone.

And so now she waited, her breathing picking up – she didn't know how she managed to keep it in check – and her entire body tensed and worried.

She wanted to count – but what was there to count? She was alone in her rooms, there was no rain, Crookshanks had wandered off a few minutes prior, presumably to monitor Harry and Ron's trip down to her rooms, and she was stifled with silence.

And that scared her the most.

Silence, with Lucius Malfoy, had always been the calm before the storm. It had been her time to recover, her time to gather her hopes once more, to wish that she would be rescued soon, and when the silence was over, her recovery was ruined, her hopes had been destroyed, and her wishes had been crushed. And there had been nothing to do but to try again, to try one final time to recover, to hope, to wish, and when that failed again, it started over.

And then Draco had broken the cycle, had granted her wish, had saved her from what surely would have become her death.

Hermione didn't know what to think of him, didn't know if she should be scared of him, or grateful to him, or cautious, or wary. She didn't know if he was angry that his father was in prison, didn't know if he hated her still, or if he had ulterior motives for helping her. But damn if she could stop the gratitude. She knew that she would forever think of him as a hero, despite whatever happened after their meeting, despite whatever words they exchanged later. He had rescued her, he had cared enough – at least at that very moment in time – to turn his life around to save her. He might not have thought of it that way – hell, who was she to say how he thought? – but there was no other explanation for it. He had cared – and if not for her specifically, he cared enough for another human being to not want them dead.

She could not, would not forget that.

And maybe that was exactly why she felt more compelled to speak with him than with her best friends. She could not blame them for not knowing how or where to find her, she could not blame them for being concerned, but she still did not feel indebted to them the way she did for Draco. She had no motivation to speak with them except that they were her friends and had tried to help her through her pain, which should have been enough.

She did love them for that.

But it was _not_ the same, was not in any form similar to the need to see Draco's face up close, to force herself to look at him – the one that had saved her – and not his father – the very one that had caused this unnatural, grievous shift in her life, the very one that had taken away her family and had left her to rot in a dungeon in the middle of godforsaken _nowhere_, the very one that had tortured her, used her, mauled her without another care in the world.

Because, Merlin help her, she would _not_ confuse her rescuer for her torturer.

**/**x**\**

Ron looked around Hermione's pale blue rooms nervously, shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his robes. He felt out of place, as if he and Harry had missed a significant part of Hermione's life and would never be allowed to see what they had missed. He felt like he would never know what Hermione suffered through, and he felt that it could be detrimental to their friendship.

Hermione seemed fragile in a way that he could never remember. When he had seen her at the hospital she had been weak and broken, but she had then seemed too thankful to be breakable, or she had been breakable and he simply had not seen it. When they had taken her home he had seen a brief flash of pain, but it had been gone by the time that they had gotten back to the Burrow, and now he wondered if it had ever been gone or if she had not _wanted_ them to see it.

It would be just like Hermione to hide away from them, to cover her brokenness and pain so that they would not worry for her. And of course they did anyway, but he could see now that he would worry for her much more, because she was seemingly too exhausted and too scared to hide it anymore.

He didn't want to ask how she was doing, because right now he feared that he might receive a real answer, which he had just decided he didn't want.

So instead he waited for Harry to make a decision – because Harry had always been more of a Gryffindor than he – and studied Hermione's face, because for some inexplicable reason he felt that he never wanted to forget how weary, how scared, how utterly beautiful and utterly _untouchable_ she looked right now, curled in her armchair just that way with her stupid, fat orange cat huddled in her lap.

**/**x**\**

Hermione's fingers trembled as she strummed them through Crookshanks' soft, groomed fur. She didn't like the way that Ron was staring at her; he had seemed nervous when he came in, had seemed as if he knew she didn't want them there because it was her safe place where she really was untouchable, and had seemed as if he had grown thirty years since the day he and Harry had taken her from the hospital and back to the Burrow.

It frightened her.

She had always hoped that Ron would grow up, because he had been so bloody immature, but she didn't know that she liked being the cause of his surge out of boyhood.

And Harry… God, he was furious, and she could see it, plain as day, etched all over his face and in his tense shoulders and heavy steps. She shivered because at that very moment, with that precise look of anger and betrayal hovering over his face, she was _afraid_ of him, much as she hated to admit it.

It was Harry, the same Harry she had always known – and yet it wasn't. Harry had been angry with her before; that was not new. But he had never been frightening, not this way. He had never been this hard and stern toward her, and that was more than enough to put her on her guard. There would not be soft words and an exchange of casualties today; he would demand answers, would demand that she tell him everything – and she would have no choice but to deny him.

**/**x**\**

Harry couldn't help himself. He was mad; he was so mad that he couldn't think of any other words to describe his intense madness. He wanted Hermione to talk to them, damn it, and he wanted to know what had happened to her. He wanted know the story behind every single one of those damned scars, and he wanted to know about the attacks, the shakes, the hatred of touches.

He wanted to know, and he had every intention to find out. But he couldn't just _ask_ her; she was nervous like Ron was, but Harry was too mad to be nervous.

He didn't know how to ease the topic toward where he needed it to be, and was too mad to ponder over it. "How are you?" It wasn't nice, in fact it was almost hateful. But he had said it.

Hermione shrugged. "I'm – I'm okay."

Harry narrowed his eyes. She wasn't, not really, and it was damn obvious. "No you're not."

She opened her mouth, most likely to argue, but he cut her off. "You're not okay, Hermione," he snapped. He would feel guilty later for carelessly causing her to shrink back in her chair, to snap her mouth shut, but he was too consumed by rage to care right now. "Why are you scared of us?"

He could hear her breathing heavily, could feel Ron itching to protect her from his harshness, but he didn't care, not right now. He wouldn't retract the question; he wanted an answer, damn it.

"I – I'm not. I don't mean to be," Hermione answered, voice wavering.

"Then don't be," Harry said firmly. "Talk to me, Hermione."

Later, he would notice that he did not say 'talk to _us,_ Hermione'. Later, he would notice that this wasn't about her keeping secrets from Harry _and_ Ron, but just _Harry_. Later, he would notice that he was selfish and cruel and unbelievably demanding, but not now.

"I c-can't do that, Harry," Hermione said shakily, her hands coming up to cover her mouth, presumably to help her choke a sob back.

"Why not?" He ordered. "Do you think we won't understand? Do you think we've never seen what Voldemort can do? He's tried to _kill me_, Hermione, or don't you remember? Don't you remember that I know what it's like to lose my family, too?" He was shaking now, too, but not from fear, not from anxiety like Hermione. He was shaking because he was angry.

**/**x**\**

Hermione couldn't breathe, couldn't move, but she forced herself to focus on words and not her own feelings. She would think of the rest later.

She felt anger surge under the panic, felt her fury bubbling under the fear. Couldn't he see that it was entirely different to watch your parents die, watch a man stab them in the back without a care in the world than to be in another room – as a baby, no less – and simply hear them scream?

"It's not the same," she whispered, shaking her head. "They're nothing alike."

"Like _hell_ they aren't!" Harry roared. "Like bloody _hell_. They're still dead, aren't they?"

"Your parents weren't _stabbed_," Hermione snarled. "You were a baby! You hardly knew them! It isn't the same." Her hand fluttered to her mouth again, and this time she bit her fist to hold back more words, to hold back her sobs and her anguish. She didn't want to hurt him, she truly didn't. But he had no right to be angry with her, no right to compare the two situations, and no right to scare her this way.

God, she couldn't breathe. She couldn't – she just couldn't remember how, couldn't snatch the air into her lungs. And she couldn't see. She didn't remember if she had closed her eyes or if she had covered them with her hands to stem the tears, but she couldn't see.

Crookshanks was hissing, and she wanted to apologize to him; she knew he didn't like it when people shouted. She couldn't hold back the guilt she felt for throwing those harsh words at Harry, but for a very long time he hadn't been Harry to her, he had simply been cruel and evil and potentially dangerous, and she had not seen her best friend, she had seen only someone who would wish to cause her harm.

And she would not go there again, not when she had a choice, not when she could fight it.

She couldn't feel air anymore, couldn't content herself with the shallow breaths she was getting because she couldn't feel the air enter or exit her lungs. And a moment later there was nothing; no difficulties breathing, no hissing, no anger, no accusatory words.

Hermione couldn't feel. Her body was numb, her heart might as well have disappeared because she sure as hell couldn't feel the heavy, racing beats of it.

Air was whispering over her clammy skin, cooling her face with a gentle breeze, and rushing into her chest as if it could have known that she had felt the sharp scarcity of breaths in her body. She forced herself to grab at it, to accept it as it flooded through her, to allow it to calm her in this unexpected, supernatural manner.

Slowly she felt the world return to her, felt the room whirl back into its rightful place, felt the breeze whisper away as quickly as it had come to her, and felt everything else return as well. The anger, the tension, Crookshanks' displeasure.

Only now she could breathe.

**/**x**\**

Garret felt the unnatural shift in the air, brushed it away with a shot of liquor. He didn't care right now. Not today, not this day. He would deal with Hermione's elemental training tomorrow, perhaps the day after, but today he would not.

Today he would mourn.

The picture that rested on the table, beside the liquor bottle, had once been his entire world, had once been the only reason he had thrived onward the way he had.

It had been his family.

His wife on the left, and his daughter grinning at him on the right.

And two floors down was the only person in the world who could every day remind him so harshly, so intimately that he had failed as a father and as a husband to protect the ones he cared about.

They looked similar, but not the same. His daughter, his Lainey had been taller – because Hermione was really quite petite – and her hair had been a few shades darker. Hermione had more freckles than Lainey, also had a smaller nose.

But their eyes, those brown and gold eyes were the same. They were beautiful, they were intense and soft and undeniably forgiving, and Garret wondered if there were not a time or two when Hermione had been frightened by the way he had looked into them.

It was cold for that to be the only trait that both of them had shared.

The eyes were the windows to the soul, and Garret could see now that their souls had been remarkably alike, except that now Hermione's was much darker, much more haunted than Lainey's had ever been, and he found that he was thankful that it had not been his daughter that had been taken.

Yes, Hermione was still alive and his daughter was not, but he wondered if perhaps existing the way that Hermione did was worse than the quick death Lainey had been granted. He could at the very least be grateful for that.

**/**x**\**

**Author's Note:** I know it's shorter than usual, but I felt it was a very revealing chapter and a relatively good place to stop it. Some of you might have been having suspicions concerning Garret, so here's _some_ of his story. I hope you enjoyed it! Please review. **: )**


	10. Reminisce

Minerva had decided, rather wisely, that leaving Hermione alone with the Malfoy boy would not be intelligent. As much as she knew that Hermione hated to admit it, there could be serious repercussions to seeing and conversing with Draco one-on-one.

She looked to Hermione, whose face was unbelievably pale, unbelievably lifeless, and affirmed from it that despite whatever conclusion the two of them reached today, it would not be easy. Hermione was so clearly in pain, physical and otherwise, after her meeting with Potter and Weasley. Minerva could simply not imagine how it would be after this, after the meeting with Draco.

She was scared for Hermione; not just scared… Minerva was terrified, almost shaking herself. She could not soothe Hermione with soft promises because even she did not and could not believe them. There was nothing to be said for it. Draco was his father's son, his father's _only _son, and as good as his father's clone. They were so similar in appearance that sometimes even Minerva had to look twice.

Minerva could see that Hermione was struggling. She was hardly breathing, and Minerva knew because she could hear nothing and could scarcely see her shoulders bump up and down. It was odd, Minerva thought, because in stressful situations Hermione tended to breathe too quickly and too heavily, not this slowly, not this silently.

"I should expect you might need this," Minerva offered, resting a cup of tea on the table in front of her student.

Hermione stared at the cup blankly, blinked three times, then looked up to her professor. Minerva cringed at the despondence and sheer hopelessness buried beneath those honey brown eyes. She was frightened, but any fool could have known that, could have read the news and would have known how horrified she would be.

It struck Minerva that she was not breathing heavily now because she was not having a panic attack, she was coaching herself into accepting whatever new punishment he might choose to bestow on her. Hermione did not yet know of any way to distinguish father and son, did not yet know what to expect from Draco. She was not readying herself for a heartfelt conversation, she was preparing herself to be _hurt_, to be _abused_, or perhaps even _raped_.

_God._

What had Lucius Malfoy done to this poor child? That was exactly what Hermione had been – a damn child! And Lucius Malfoy had ripped her soul from her body, trampled on it, ripped it, stabbed it, and whatever else he pleased, and handed it back to her without another care in the world.

**/**x**\**

Hermione clenched her teeth and held back a cringe when the knock came on her portrait door. She closed her eyes tightly, held them there, released them only when she heard McGonagall stand to open it.

Her hands shook. Violently. She knew it was no longer unnatural for her, but she hated it, hated that she could not mask her fear of him, or more accurately her fear of his father. She wanted to thank him, she truly did, but her own sense of self-preservation told her to be careful, to be wary, to be prepared for anything.

Draco walked in, and Hermione froze. She didn't move an inch; not to curl into a ball, not to move away from him, sure as _hell_ not to approach him, not to speak to him. She froze.

She was gripped by the chilled hands of fear. Sweat raced across her forehead, pain reared down her spine. She could never remember feeling so terrified, and never so guilty, never so angry with herself.

Hermione's hands had lost all feeling, as had her toes. She wasn't breathing properly and she knew it, but could do nothing about it, not now, not in this precarious situation. She tried, _Merlin_ she tried not to be scared of him – not him, of all the people in the world. Not him. He _saved_ her. He _rescued_ her. He brought her from the deepest corridors of hell back to a land that she knew.

But he looked so much like his father.

She shivered, and opened her mouth once, twice, and then on the third she said, "You look… _just_ like him."

It wasn't what she had been meaning to say. In fact, she didn't know what she'd meant to say at all, but not that, never that. She didn't want to compare him to his father, didn't want to degrade him that way before she knew his intentions and motives. But it had spilled from her mouth, surely in her terror, before she could have even thought to stop it.

"_God,_" she cursed, standing shakily and turning away from him, pacing from the kitchenette and back to her chair. "I – I'm sorry. Just… I just need a minute."

**/**x**\**

Draco tightened his fists and loosened them anxiously. He'd never been so nervous, never so guilty or afraid.

And what reason did he have to be afraid? Nothing. Nothing in comparison to how she must feel. He wanted to be angry that she likened him to his father, wanted to be _furious_, really. But how could he deny the logic of it? He was his father's son, much as he loathed to be so, and they did look alike.

It was natural for her to see his father in him, but he didn't want her to.

He very slowly approached the sofa and sat down, watching Hermione continue her pacing and doing his best not to frighten her.

**/**x**\**

She sat down, stiff, pale, obscenely shaky, and forced herself to look at him. She forced her eyes to analyze his face, his hands, his frame, his eyes, his hair. His eyes, although not particularly friendly, were open and anxious. The planes of his face were not as sharp, not as rigid as she recalled Lucius' to be, and his hair was a shade or two darker.

His elbows rested on his knees, hands clasped together between them. He was uncomfortable, she could tell.

"I – I'm sorry," Hermione offered quietly. "Did you want tea? Or – or something?"

Draco shook his head.

She fidgeted nervously as he looked at her, tugged a blanket over her body to cover the scars. He watched the blanket as it shielded her, and when she ceased to adjust it, he locked his eyes on hers.

"If I had a legit reason for coming here, I would have told you by now," he said. "I wish I knew why I felt I had to come."

Hermione blinked a couple times, and averted her eyes from his when it began to feel invasive. "It's okay," she muttered. "I – I should have thanked you ages ago."

She sat very still in her chair, unsure of what to expect. She couldn't breathe, was almost afraid to. She could feel the tension in her back, could feel it tighten and twist and invoke pain, but she couldn't move.

Draco cleared his throat and looked around the room for a moment, before he said, "Granger, it isn't common for me to apologize – especially not in a situation such as this when I have done nothing wrong. But damn it, I'm sorry for what he did to you, for what he did to your mother and father. I'm sorry for – for the knives, and the curses, and – "

"Stop," Hermione pleaded, gasping through pain. "Stop."

"I'm not finished," Draco argued stubbornly. "I'm sorry for the dreams, and the pain, and the fear, and I'm sorry… I'm just damn sorry, Granger."

Hermione squeezed her eyes shut, heaved in air again and again, failed dismally at reaping in oxygen. Her head was spinning, was reliving days that she had tried repeatedly to erase, to color out, to remove.

"_You will bloody well talk to me!" Lucius raged, kicking the side of her head roughly. _

"No!" Hermione shouted.

_Malfoy raked a shimmering dagger across the inside of her thigh, drawing out vast amounts of blood and grinned at her maliciously. "Potter is _dead_, Granger."_

"He isn't dead!" She cried out desperately. "He isn't!"

_Lucius muttered words beneath his breath and pressed his wand to Hermione's back. She screamed out in pain as the brand-like heat designed patterns across her skin, marked her as his in such a physical, irremovable way._

**/**x**\**

"Mr. Malfoy, floo Madam Pomfrey!" McGonagall demanded, moving beside Hermione and whispering to her in Gallic.

Draco stumbled to the floo, tossed in some powder and called for the infirmary. He couldn't remember what he'd said to the kindly healer, couldn't remember pulling his head away from the flames. He couldn't even remember what the healer did to elicit such loud and pain-filled shrieks from Granger once she had arrived.

He remembered air hurling itself around him, twisting, whooshing in unnatural ways. He remembered her screams, the stiffness of her body when they moved her. He remembered tears crashing from her cheeks to the floor.

What had he done? Why hadn't he listened to her when she asked him to stop?

_God._ He'd never felt so awful, never so ashamed of himself nor of his father. He wondered now what else his father had done to her, what Lucius Malfoy had _told_ her, how he had abused her.

"I should go," Draco suggested, stepping back from Granger's bed. "She – she probably wouldn't want to see me. I'm sorry for coming."

**/**x**\**

"Perhaps you'd like to see Severus," McGonagall offered. "He should be in his office."

She applauded the boy for apologizing, was proud of him for staying to see if she was alright. "Mr. Malfoy," she said as his hand touched the doorknob, "this isn't your burden to bear. You are not to blame for what has happened to her. She certainly does not think so."

Minerva watched as his hand clenched, then released, and he nodded before excusing himself from the room.

She sighed, and turned back to Hermione. "One day I will have strength enough to ask you what his father did to you, and perhaps one day you will be well enough to share with me."

Minerva placed a small, wrapped present against the nightstand and whispered, "Happy birthday, child."

**/**x**\**

**Author's Note: **I _have_ noticed that my chapters are shorter lately, but they're about all I have time for. I'm very sorry to all of you, but I'll say once more that I hope you enjoy them anyway. Please review! **: )**


	11. Loving

"But is she _alright_, Minerva?" Severus growled.

"How can you ask such a question?" Minerva retorted. "She's hasn't been alright all summer, Severus! How can you expect her to be alright after seeing Draco Malfoy, of all the people in the world? And after spending three hours with Potter, with his accusations, his selfishness!"

"What did Potter say?" Severus asked suddenly.

"Oh, all that was expected of him to say," she snapped. "He accused her of hiding things from them, yelled at her for not confiding in him, brought up her parents and how they died, compared their deaths to the deaths of his parents and how _he _of all people would have understood that and so she had no reason to keep it from him."

Severus didn't respond to that, but Minerva could see his face reddening, could see the anger and protectiveness overcome his being. "_Potter_," Severus snarled, "is a stupid, self-absorbed, dangerous _boy_ who cares _nothing_ for the feelings of other people, just like his father."

"Under any other circumstances, I might argue with you. Tonight, I find myself in strong agreement," Minerva said quietly, eyes roving over Hermione pale, unconscious body. "She's been out for hours, Severus. She should have woken by now."

"No," Severus argued quietly. "She should not be awake now, if what Draco has told me is true. She's suppressed a lot of memories, Minerva; she's buried them, forced herself to push them out of her mind. And from the sound of it, she'd succeeded until Draco opened his trap and started spouting off apologies."

"The boy was trying to right things, Severus, and you of all people should know how hard that is to do, how hard it is to admit yourself wrong on all accounts," Minerva defended pointedly.

"If you'll remember correctly," Severus interjected, glaring, "my apologies never sent someone unconscious."

"No," Minerva bit back, "you did _that_ for sport. It was an accident, Severus, and you'd do well to remember it. Now if you'll excuse me, I've yet to find Garret since this ruckus began and I feel that he'll soon be needed in regards to Hermione's abilities."

Severus watched her leave with a bit of resentment, but it was overpowered by anger and fear. _God_, he'd never felt so much fear, he didn't think. He didn't know why he was so attached to Hermione Granger, didn't know why he felt an incessant need to protect her, didn't know why he was so concerned for her health, but damn it all if he could help it.

He'd felt attachments to two students in all of his time here: Draco and Hermione.

Severus was drawn to Draco because the child was his godson, because he felt that he could help the boy, stop him from becoming what he had been so many years ago. He could guess that he was drawn to Hermione because she resembled everything he had done in his lifetime, and if there were ever a time to rectify his mistakes, this was it.

But it wasn't only that.

There was something else about her, something past the annoying know-it-all she had been prior to the summer holidays. She was not a usual type of woman, not the archetypal, intentionally mysterious type. She was damn smart, everyone knew that, but Severus had a sinking suspicion that she only shared a small inkling of her knowledge.

She was better than them, he realized. She _wasn't_ usual, or normal. She was more than that, more than they would have ever expected. She wasn't just smart, she was… well, he couldn't put a word to what she was. Unique didn't cut it. Intelligent was probably an insult.

She was beautiful.

He couldn't think of another word for her. Her scars – well they tainted her, that much was very clear, very obvious, but they were humbling, they spoke of her character. The scars were healed – every one of them sewn up and changed into various shapes and sizes of white lines that darted over every piece of flesh that was visible to the eye, and many more that weren't. She was strong, she was enduring, she was patient.

Severus didn't know of a better way for her character to be shown from a physical feature.

_But_, he thought again, _most people don't see that._

And it was true. People looked at the scars and saw her pain, her torture, and they were frightened by them. Hermione Granger must have known those scars back to front, could remember the memory behind every single one of them. She didn't hide them so that she wouldn't see them, she hid them so that others wouldn't.

Severus blinked once, and then a second time. He'd analyzed this woman time and time again, but he had never once had such an epiphany over anything.

Hermione wasn't unique, or intelligent, or beautiful, she was just… _loving_.

She didn't give a damn what others thought of her, because she had no reason to care if they loved her. But she loved them. She didn't care if the world threw insults behind her back, or to her face, because she didn't need to be loved. But she needed _to_ love.

That was her weakness, and her strength.

And Lucius had used it against her in every way he could.

_God damn it!_ Severus raged. _He never expected to get anything out of her! He damn well knew he wouldn't! Lucius is smarter than that. He just wanted to _torture_ her. He knew she'd never tell him a damn thing, knew she'd never betray Potter that way. Damn it, I _saw_ the way he looked at her at the Quidditch Cup last summer. I _saw _it. I could have stopped this._

Lucius had pitched the idea to Voldemort, Severus was willing to bet. Lucius had known that she wouldn't tell him anything, but that was the excuse he used for bringing her to his dungeon, for getting the idea approved by Voldemort.

Severus had never felt more like a failure in his life.

**/**x**\**

"Stop," Hermione murmured, "stop! Don't hurt him!"

Severus cringed.

He had been at her bedside for three hours; she had not woken, Minerva had not returned, he felt no better about his recent findings. And a half hour ago, Hermione had started to speak, to whisper, to whimper small words and sentences.

If anything had ever had the power to break Severus Snape's heart, this was it.

He was half tempted to wake her up and ask what she dreamt of, but that was invasive and stupid. He could guess himself that she was dreaming of Potter; perhaps Lucius was trying to kill him in her dream.

Severus found that he would not oppose to that.

"Don't!" Hermione said, voice rising substantially. "Leave him alone! He's your son! Draco!"

Startled, Severus jumped, stared down at her incredulously. She was crying, sobbing, even, for Draco. Oh, he'd known that she loved… she handed love out as if it were candy, foolishly so, and expected nothing in return. But that she would cry for Draco, the very one who had caused this bout of unconsciousness... well, it – it _touched_ him.

She calmed ten minutes later, after a few more moments of similar words.

Severus looked up at the clock, looked back down at her and sighed. "Perhaps it is insignificant," he whispered quietly, "but you deserve friends who will give you a better birthday than this. You deserve friends who _remember_ your birthday," he finished bitterly.

"As for me," he continued, despite not knowing why he felt compelled to speak at all, "if it were not implied by my presence here, I do care for you. Perhaps in a twisted, parental-like manner, Miss Granger, but the fact, nevertheless, is that I do… _care_."

He felt awkward, awkward to be talking while she could not hear him, awkward to be telling anyone, but a student in particular that he cared for them in any way, especially as a… father might care for a daughter. It was unusual for him to care for anyone at all, but he never spoke it aloud.

For some reason or another, he felt that she had good cause to hear it.

**/**x**\**

"It took you long enough to arrive," Severus said coolly, glancing over at West and eyeing him with contempt.

"Forgive me," Garret answered neutrally. "I was occupied with another matter. And barring that, there is nothing I can do for Miss Granger until she awakes, and even then I will not start her training right away."

"It's freezing in this room, Professor West, or perhaps you failed to notice the drafts of wind that she's drawn up in her sleep," Severus responded icily.

"I had noticed them, Professor Snape," Garret responded, clearly itching to release his mounting temper. "Hermione has drawn them up to regulate her body temperature. If you feel the need to test it, to check my accuracy on the matter, you'll find that the thermometer will read the average 37 degrees Celsius, just as yours, just as mine. She would otherwise be running a fever at the moment, so the wind is her Element's way of keeping it down. Now if you'll excuse me, Master Snape, I expect only to be fetched again once she has awoken."

Severus sneered at him as he dismissed himself from the room, and said nothing to Minerva once he had gone.

"Why have you not left, Severus?" She asked him softly.

He waited silently, and then said, "I haven't the faintest."

It was a lie.

He did know, now, why he was attached to her, why he felt the need to protect her, to ease her pain. He _did_ know why he feared to leave her alone. It wasn't only that she was friends with Potter than put her in danger, it was her nature, her character that was so forebodingly appealing, and he'd be damned if she was ever used for it in such a manner again.

**Author's Note:**

This chapter is dedicated to Zencry, who always encourages my writing even if she doesn't particularly like the most recent chapter. **; )** She's my inspiration most of the time, so give her a shout out, and check out her stories if you get a free moment!

Second, I know that not a lot happened in this chapter, but I figured that a lot of my readers were itching for some of Sev, so I dedicated a whole chapter to him. Tell me what you thought. Next chapter should have some more EE stuff in it (because I've neglected it some in the past chapters) and probably some other stuff too. Watch out for it!


	12. Cold

"Cole," Kara whispered urgently, "I don't think – "

"Quiet," he hissed back, rustling through drawers. "He must have kept them here somewhere. Keep looking."

"This is wrong," Kara said anxiously. "You _know_ this is wrong. You're taking this too far."

"Too far?" Cole snarled, and twisted around to face her. "Too far? My entire life I was isolated, I was degraded and ignored in favor of my _brother_ because he was born _twelve bloody minutes_ earlier. Why the hell should _his_ second born be treated any differently than I was, any _better_ than I was?"

"I'm not saying it was _right_, Cole," Kara softened. "I'm not saying that it makes any sense at all to me. I just – I don't understand why putting someone else through the same misery that you experienced makes anything better. Beyond that, I can't understand why it would drive you to break the law."

Sneering, Cole muttered, "You wouldn't, would you? You wouldn't know what it was like to have every accomplishment you ever made downgraded, what it was like to be taught differently than your brother, simply because he was older by a couple minutes. I had – I _have_ just as much power as he ever did, just as much intelligence as he did. I was just never trained the same way, never given the same opportunities. They all but drove me out of the community, Kara, because I was the second child to be born."

"But what does that have to do with – "

"He never helped me! He never once tried to tell them that I was just as quick-witted as he was! He just watched it happen! And let me tell you something, Kara, I'll do the very same for his daughters. I _will_ find out which of them was born first, I _will_ find out where he stashed the other twin, and I _will_ exploit them. I fully intend to watch the unwanted one struggle to understand why the hell she's being treated differently, trained differently. And I fully intend to let that anger manifest, and let her be angry and depressed her entire life, just as I've been. What better sort of payback is there?" He asked malevolently.

Kara shivered as his words sent an uneasy feeling traveling up her spine. "That's vindictive and spiteful and utterly despicable."

"Shut up!" He roared finally, seemingly forgetting that they were currently breaking into his deceased brother's home and illegally rifling through his things. "I'm so sick of you belittling everything I do, or say, or think. Just _shut up_, Kara."

She shrank back as he continued to leaf through papers and open documents on the PC in front of him. "Fine," she murmured, carefully placing the stack of letters she held back on the desk in the manner that she found them. "I'm not doing this, Cole. I won't condemn a _child_ to that sort of treatment. Like it or not, you're still their uncle. You're still meant to look after them, still meant to respect the way your brother raised them. If you're going to continue to ignore what you _know_ is the right thing to do, that's fine. But don't you expect me to condone it. In fact," Kara said, standing and pointing a finger at him, "don't expect me to hang around while you do it. Ring me when you've found the man that I married, Cole Granger, because I don't even know you anymore."

**/**x**\**

Hermione ignored the aching in her joints, the throbbing of her lower back, and forced herself to struggle into a sitting position, resting against her pillows.

Her bedroom was dark, unlit. She felt a slight pressure against her midriff, and she stiffened. She couldn't see very much, could only barely make out the outline of her oversized cat with several moments of focus.

She leaned over and picked Crookshanks up by his stomach, resting him on top of her chest. His small paws reached out to touch her nose, and she gave him a small half-smile in response. "It's alright," she muttered, hugging him closer to her, "I'm alright."

Her bedroom door creaked open slowly, dauntingly, and Hermione flinched, shying away from it.

"Miss Granger?"

"Professor McGonagall?" Hermione asked, furrowing her eyebrows in confusion, in utter bewilderment. "Why – why is it so cold?"

"In a moment, Miss Granger. How do you feel?"

Hermione shrugged noncommittally. "I'm alright."

And she was alright; she was no better or worse than she had been since her return to friendly allies. But she was most certainly not on the better end of the spectrum, as she was sure they were all acutely aware of.

"Your back?" Minerva asked softly, seating herself in the chair that had previously been occupied by Snape.

"It's fine," Hermione lied.

McGonagall eyed her suspiciously, then nodded. "Very well. If you'll recall, Miss Granger, these new abilities of yours were meant to activate sometime around your seventeenth birthday. I'm not sure if you're aware," she said sadly, "but the nineteenth of September happened to be yesterday."

Hermione said nothing. She hadn't realized, didn't particularly care that yesterday had been her birthday. It held no significance to her, unless something occurred with her Elemental self, but she did not think that her head of house would take to that very well.

"As a result," McGonagall ploughed on, determined not to coddle the girl, "it appears that your Element acted out in order to keep your body temperature regulated, which may help to explain why the room temperature dropped several degrees."

Interested, nervous, and hesitant, Hermione asked, "I – I made the room this cold?"

"I'm not entirely sure of the mechanics, Hermione, however from Garret's description it was, to some degree, of your volition combined with the… _spirit_ of the wind," she said uncomfortably, clearly doubtful.

"The… _spirit_?" Hermione asked.

"I had thought you might be wary of the term," McGonagall smiled fondly. "You and I think very much alike, Miss Granger. Yes, spirit was precisely the word West used, however I'll ask you not to make judgments prior to speaking with him, and I'll further request that you not voice any negative opinions of it today; he appears to be in a very… inflamed sort of mood."

Hermione nodded. "Professor? May I… ask a favor?"

Piqued, McGonagall answered, "Absolutely."

"Could you – Would you tell Draco that I'm sorry? I don't think I can… Well, not today, anyway. I just wish he wouldn't think himself to blame," Hermione rattled. "I'm sure he doesn't, of course, and he shouldn't. But I want him to know…"

"Child," McGonagall said, "you are far too kind for your own good. I shall inform him, as you wish."

"Thank you," Hermione muttered.

McGonagall picked something up from the nightstand and offered it to Hermione. "A birthday gift," McGonagall informed her.

Hermione looked up at her mentor, eyes watering, and said, "You didn't have to do that."

"Someone else should have," McGonagall said quietly. "It will haunt me forever that your friends and family overlooked the day, Hermione."

Carefully, Hermione picked at the red and gold wrapping, gently peeling it away until a small, royal blue container the size of a ring box rested in her hand. She opened it, unsure of what to think, unsure of how to feel. A sphere, small with swirling, light rainbow tints, rested within the box.

Eyebrows furrowed, Hermione looked to her former professor.

"That," McGonagall cleared her throat uneasily, "is an energy sphere. It is used to harness and focus your magical energy levels to perform magic with a higher accuracy rate."

"I – I don't know what to say," Hermione breathed. "Thank you."

"You are quite welcome. There was, however, an objective with this gift. It has been brought to my attention that you have been focusing primarily on bookwork, and learning Elemental information. While this is very good, you can do better, Miss Granger. Wands, as I've come to understand, deny your heart any wish you might have had to perform magic," McGonagall said, nodding her head in the direction of the bureau on the opposing side of the room where Hermione kept her wand stashed. "I am convinced – because I know how powerful, how focused, how determined you are, Miss Granger – that you can master wandless magic in less time than it would take for you to become comfortable with your wand again. The energy sphere will encourage these efforts, however after a point it should become unnecessary.

"When using the sphere, you may at first feel uncomfortable with the fluctuating levels of magic, but after a time you should be more easily capable of determining how much of your magic focuses through the sphere, and how much of it you moderate yourself. Should West feel uncomfortable or unknowledgeable in teaching you wandless magic, I should have no trouble arranging a period to tutor you myself."

Hermione could no longer hold back her tears, her gratefulness. "Professor, I… You really, really did not have to do this for me. I just – _thank you._"

"You mustn't thank me so, Hermione," McGonagall said quietly.

"But I must," Hermione answered thickly, wiping furiously at her own tears, "I truly must. You've been nothing but kind, nothing but encouraging since I returned, and I can't think of a way to ever repay you."

"Which is more than alright," the elderly professor informed her, "because I expect no repayment."

Hermione, with the utmost care, placed the sphere within the box and rested it on the nightstand. She couldn't think of what to say, or what to do, what was expected of her. "Professor, I expect that it means next to nothing," she said slowly, "but I am grateful, and whether you expect a reward or not you will, eventually, receive one."

"Then I shall look forward to it," McGonagall smiled softly and smoothed the blanket around her favorite pupil. "You should rest, Miss Granger. When you are well, we shall speak with Garret and see if we can't work something out."

"Thank you again, Professor."

"Rest," McGonagall instructed. "We shall speak in the morning."

**/**x**\**

**Author's Note:** I know it's been a while, guys, and I know that the chapter is substantially less than lengthy, but I hope you enjoyed it.

Next chapter, we _might_ see a visit from Fudge, so we'll see what that's about. **; )**

Next order of business, I have another story titled Long Past the Time, which is a Sirius-Hermione fic that I hope you all can take a moment to read. I hope you enjoy that one as well, but review and let me know!

Lastly, the first section of this chapter is dedicated to Zencry, who has been pestering me (in the best of ways!) to involve Cole in the story. It might appear random, but it's somewhat necessary to the plot line.

**Review please, guys! : )**


	13. Cringe

**_Warning: Rape is described with explicit detail in the chapter._ **

**All relevant, obviously, to the reasons behind Hermione's illnesses and fears, but you can skip it if it's too much; italicized bits are the dream (the controversial part) so if you'd like to avoid it just scroll down to the break between italics and normal font.**

"_What would you give," Lucius hissed, "to save his life?"_

Anything,_ she wanted to cry. _I would give anything.

"_Hmm?" He whispered in her ear, easing himself on top of her. "What are you willing to do to save Potter?"_

_She didn't answer, couldn't speak, couldn't breathe. She ached to scream, to sob, to throw him away from her and against the hard stone floor. She wanted nothing more than to kill this man, to kill him for breaking her, for threatening Harry, for threatening the entire world that she had come to know as her own._

_Lucius smirked and dug his teeth into her ear, eliciting a scream. "Answer me, you dimwitted filth!"_

_She refused, adamantly and vehemently, because everything that she would give to Harry, Lucius would take from her. Lucius would take her heart, her life, her very soul, simply because he knew that she would give it._

_Impatient and irritated, Lucius slapped her across the face and snarled, "You are to _respect_ me, damn it! I am your superior! _You_ answer to _me_!"_

_She still didn't answer._

"Crucio_!" He snapped._

_Finally, she cried out as the pain throbbed through her, stabbing every piece of available flesh, and arched into Malfoy to avoid the pain. It was a bad move, an involuntary action that she didn't mean to make._

_She paid the consequences._

"_Now you want me, do you?" Lucius sneered egotistically. "Go on then," he said, "show me what you've got." He released her from the Cruciatus, and she gasped in air, ignoring the thudding pain in her chest. "_Imperio_," he said, giving her little time to recover._

_She tried to throw it off, tried to resist his orders and demands, tried to disobey him, but she was far too weak, too exhausted, and in too much pain to be very successful. She refused the demands the first two times he tried, and on the third she collapsed to his will, cringing internally._

"_Fuck me, Granger," Lucius breathed headily. _

_Ashamed, embarrassed, and entirely disgusted, Hermione tried not to, tried to go against the curse, and discovered with increasing humiliation and defeat that she could not._

_Her body continued to arch into his, hips involuntarily undulating as he entered her and he grunted in appreciation, eyes closed and head leaning back. Hermione continued to fight it, but even while he was in the midst of uncontrollable pleasure, she was still weaker than he was._

_She cringed as her body obeyed his order to quicken the pace, fell into him with as little control as a rag doll. She felt disconnected from her body, felt as though she were looking in from the outside, and even still she felt repulsed by what he was forcing her to do. She had never hated anything as much as she hated this man._

_He was raping her – and not even just physically, he was raping her mind, too. It was much worse when she could not even attempt to fight him off, attempt to keep him away from her. She felt guilty and tainted for allowing her body to simply do as he commanded, for allowing her body to do as he said, for allowing her body to fuck him. Particularly while her mind was still so vehemently against it._

_Tears fled from her eyes, collapsed down her cheeks as he gripped her hips, squeezing them, bruising them, and forcing her to thrust into him much faster. She was sweating, both from the physical action and the constant surges of her will to throw the curse off, but she couldn't. She was so confused, so haunted, so hurt. Her body wanted to obey him, wanted to do as he instructed, and she couldn't find it in her to stop it. _

"_This is what happens, mudblood," Lucius said between thrusts. "This is what happens when you elect to disobey me; I take away the option, take away your choice. How does it feel, Granger? How does it feel to be with a man of my status and power? I bet you enjoy it, don't you, mudblood?"_

_She could tell he got off on speaking to her that way, could tell because his pace quickened and he lost his breath as he erupted inside of her. _

_He stood up and redressed himself, saying nothing as he did so, and turned to her before he left. He flicked his wand deliberately, freeing her from the Imperious curse, and grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at him as he stared directly in to her eyes. "When I order you to answer me, mudblood, I expect you to answer," he said coolly, turning on his heel and exiting the small cell._

_Hermione waited hardly a full minute before the sobs tumbled from her mouth, tears flooding down her face without her permission. _

**/**x**\**

Hermione couldn't breathe, couldn't stop the shakiness in her hands, couldn't keep herself from crying when she awoke. She didn't want to remember it – she didn't want to remember him at all, didn't want to remember the time she spent with him.

She would never be the same, would never again be the innocent Hermione Granger that she had been before leaving school last June. She would never think, or feel, or act, or _be_ the same.

But she wanted to be.

Pain throttled her emotions, dominated every thought that had been coursing through her mind. Pain poured through her muscles, tightened around her heart, strangled her soul, tugged at her throat.

And she could do nothing to stop it, nothing to alleviate the aches, but for curling into her habitual sphere and sobbing as the pain pricked against the back of her eyelids, forcing colors into her vision, distorting her view of everything.

But never once did she forget the memory that had corrupted her dream that night, much as she tried to focus on the pain. For the pain was much more welcome than the memories.

**/**x**\**

"She isn't well, at the moment," Albus maintained, standing from behind his desk and firmly planting his hands a shoulder's width apart on the cool, wooden surface.

"I've been told the same damn excuse since her release from the hospital last month, and it is no longer acceptable, Dumbledore!" Cornelius fumed. "It is essential to our resistance efforts that we be informed of exactly what occurred!"

Albus' cold fury seeped through his words, unbidden, clearly expressing his hatred for the situation and for this man. "I will further insist that the girl be left _alone_, Cornelius. She is under the protection of the school, at present, and will remain so until June."

"Under no circumstances will I wait until _June_ to hear her account!" Fudge blazed. "_I_ am the Minister of Magic, Dumbledore, and _I_ make the rules concerning this matter, not _you_. I demand to speak with the girl. Today."

Albus glared menacingly at the unwelcome intruder, and forced his voice to remain level, controlled, as he icily stated, "Miss Granger has fallen ill and is resting in her dormitory. You will _not_ disturb her."

"You've no right!" Fudge sputtered. "I may go where I please, and converse with whomever I please! If the Granger girl is well enough to speak to you, I see no reason why she should not be well enough to speak with me!"

Dumbledore tilted his head upward and forced himself back into his chair, wearily calling out, "Come in, Severus."

"I could not help but overhear your discussion, Minister. Forgive me, but perhaps," Severus said slickly as he swarmed into the room with a sneer, "it might be prudent for you to consider that the topic of discussion and the ill intended company might affect Miss Granger's willingness to speak."

"Well," Cornelius' mouth twisted into an unattractive, smug, triumphant smile, "I should say that Miss Granger will be the judge of that."

"I should say not," Severus retorted, mocking a regretful countenance, an apologetic tone. "Although it may not match your demands and… _personal _interests, Fudge, Miss Granger is currently sedated. You may consult with the school nurse, should you think me a dishonest man."

"Then I shall wait until she is roused," Fudge stuttered through his anger.

Severus hummed out of scornful skepticism, and looked away from the Minister. "Headmaster, if you wouldn't mind, Poppy requested your presence in Miss Granger's quarters."

**/**x**\**

"What's Fudge doing here, Harry?" Ron asked, indiscreetly casting hateful, anxious glances at the pompous, round man seated at the Head Table.

Harry shrugged and scowled. "Nothing good."

Fudge and Hermione's professor, West, seemed to be having a heated discussion. West looked far more collected than Fudge, but neither appeared to be pleased, nor content.

Harry opened his mouth to speak, but snapped it shut, shocked, when West stood, the loud scraping of his chair against the floor echoing and effectively silencing the Great Hall. His face was lit up with indignation and incredulity, a clouded, unappealing mixture of purple and red spilling over his face and drowning his next words with malice. "You are an overdramatic, self-absorbed, _coward_ of a man, Fudge, concerned with _nothing_ but your position in office, which is all well and good provided your sick nature is spread far away from me and my pupil, but is, at present, entirely intolerable."

West did not wait for a response, simply stomped, quite ungracefully and with a dark cloud of anger hovering around him, from the Hall.

"Now that's a true Irish temper," Seamus grinned, earning him a glare from McGonagall, to which he cringed and smiled sheepishly in her direction.

**/**x**\**

Sobs suffocated her, discontinuing her already weak breathing. Tears rolled, unchecked, down her face, and she'd given up on trying to stop them.

He was _gone_, locked away; he couldn't hurt her now. Why couldn't she forget? Why couldn't she keep the memories of the pain, the torture, the absolute humiliation and defeat from permeating through her unconscious mind? She'd never dreamt this often before, never remembered her dreams anyway. Why did they suddenly grow so vivid, so real and life-like?

She didn't care. She didn't care about the why, or the how, she just wanted them gone, wanted to forget his voice, his face, his unforgiving nature. She wanted to forget everything.

"Hermione?"

She jumped away, despite the protesting of her joints, limbs, muscles, and tendons.

"Calm yourself. It's just me. Just Garret."

Her body didn't lose the tension, however that wasn't entirely West's fault. She had been stiff since she had first woken; the surprise of his presence simply hadn't contributed to fixing the problem.

"I need you to do something, Hermione," he continued calmly, soothingly. "Focus on taking deep breaths. Count, if it helps you… Breathe in for three seconds, out for four."

She tried; she wanted to breathe very much, hated feeling frightened the way she was, hated the pain that she was in. But she couldn't make it stop, couldn't make the breaths come slower.

"Hermione," Garret said sharply, "_listen_ to me. Pay no heed to the panic, nor the pain. Focus on the air flooding into your chest, and circulating out."

She shook her head, attempting to do as he said, but the panic was too overwhelming and the pain far to great. She couldn't control either, couldn't _ignore_ either. Her breaths were smothered by her sobs, which did nothing to help her.

She gave Garret a last, terrified look before she passed back into unconsciousness.

**/**x**\**

_Authors Note:_ This one was a tad longer! Just a few quick comments:

**1****st:** I know it's been a while, but it's better late than never, eh? It's Thanksgiving break for those of us in the States, so I'm hoping to crank out at leastachapter per story. Wish me luck!

**2****nd:** _Long Past the Time _has been mentioned in previous chapters, but I do have another fic, so stop on by if you've got a chance! I appreciate reviews on _all_ my stories, not just this one. **; )**

**3****rd:** I started a new story just a few days ago titled _Enhanced_. It's my first trip into the crossover world (Harry Potter and Twilight) so if you think you might enjoy that, have a look!

**4****th: **Review! It helps my ego, and therefore contributes to my writing prowess.


	14. Think

She could feel the wind encircling her, calming her, cooling her. It was pleasant. It filtered into her throat, into her lugs, and expelled from her mouth.

It did not help to relieve the memories, but breathing was a welcome change, and she was grateful for it. She could almost grasp the air; something inside of her ached terribly to clutch it, reign it in, master it. She knew she didn't possess the ability, yet, but Garret would have encouraged her to try.

So she did.

Erratic blasts of wind hurled into opposite directions as she attempted to manipulate it. This, maybe, could help her forget about Lucius Malfoy. It was a powerful feeling, trying to dominate the wind.

It would require a lot of work, she could tell. The wind was a free thing; it was unnatural to hold it back and lock it down. But she was capable of it. And even if she had no use for such a task, she really needed something to focus her attentions on.

She tried not to think about it, because anger was an uncontrollable and unmanageable sort of emotion, but she possessed so much anger and hatred that it pained her. And the hurt… that was openly displayed to anyone who had seen her since that summer; she simply couldn't hide that. The scars were enough of a testimony to the fact, but the panic attacks, and her lack of association with people… they entirely gave her away.

And she _was_ a demon. She was meant to learn to control the element that had been bestowed upon her; it was grounded into her genes. And now that she had felt the beginnings of it within her, she was powerless against the strength it yielded. She _needed_ it. And she wanted it. She could easily spend hours, days, months attempting to harness it, and she was more than willing. She _wanted_ to misdirect her excess energy, her anger, her hurt into the effort required to manage such a task, but it was more than that.

It was biological. It was such an innate feeling that she could never accurately describe exactly how it made her feel. The wind – it wanted _her._ It wanted to govern _her_. And she felt, somehow, that she could neither control it nor could it control her. It seemed impossible.

It dawned on her that the relationship between a demon and their element wasn't meant to be tamed. It would be wild. Forceful, almost. Spontaneous and unforgiving. But incomparably powerful.

**/**x**\**

Draco's fingers itched.

It had been five minutes since West had childishly stomped his way from the Great Hall, four since his housemates began to subtly chuckle with unspoken glee, three since he'd reverted to – once again – blaming his father for everything that had caused something unpleasant in his life, two since he'd exchanged an urgent, unnamed glance with Severus, and one since Draco had stilled the nervous shaking in his leg.

He didn't need to ask what the Minister and Garret West had been arguing over; his entire house knew, by this point.

The Minister wanted a conference with Hermione Granger, wanted a review of the events from her perspective, wanted to publish her account in the _Prophet_ in order to prevent ideas from forming concerning the Ministry's reluctance to accuse Lucius Malfoy. It was a despicable, deplorable act on their end – one that Draco would never try to understand.

Hermione was hardly in a state to handle human company at all, but for human company so selfish as Fudge… Draco didn't want to imagine that. Not that he had been much better for her mental and emotional stability, really.

But he was a Malfoy. He had been trained since birth how to behave in society, and, even further, how to properly mask any and all emotions, thoughts, and opinions when the situation necessitated it.

He internally cringed, snarled at, and looked down on the whispers circulating down the Slytherin table. Most of the gossip centered around the fact that Granger deserved what she'd gotten, that Lucius would be 'released' – or would escape – in little to no time at all, and how they simply couldn't wait to see Granger's reaction to it.

It made him sick.

They hadn't seen her, but they wouldn't have had the same disgusted reaction that he had; in fact, many of them might have joined their fathers. And the girls? They wouldn't have been brought to witness it, but the lack of sympathy and compassion was so incredibly unbelievable to Draco, because surely they could better imagine how it would feel to be robbed of their innocence, and unwillingly forced into having sex with Lucius Malfoy, of all the deranged and creative people in the world.

He shook his head.

No, he couldn't think. If he started thinking, his façade would fall. They already knew of his allegiances – or rather, the lack of his allegiance to their precious _Lord_. But that was no reason to fuel the fire, no reason to encourage taunts, insults, and injuries.

But he needed to see her. He needed to see her, soon.

He couldn't explain why he felt such an entrenched connection to her. Yes, he'd seen what had been done to her, but that should have been it. He should have been able to help her and be on his way, and that simply wasn't happening. He wanted to see her. In fact, he wanted to see her _often_.

It wasn't that he necessarily wanted to be her friend, but he wanted to know her. He wanted to know how she felt about it, how she felt about him, why she'd said nothing about the time she'd spent there. He wanted to know the history behind all of the scars, the tragic, painful history. It wasn't logical. It didn't make sense – not in general, and particularly not to him. He couldn't explain why he wanted it, or even really _what_ he wanted, but a strong part of him yearned to be around her.

He was thinking again. It needed to stop.

**/**x**\**

"Hermione?"

She looked up, curious about the nervous tick in McGonagall's voice.

"I'm not entirely sure that they meant to tell you, but I feel it's your right to know," McGonagall started. "Fudge is presently staying in the castle. He – he wants to speak with you."

Hermione cringed. She didn't want to speak with Fudge. She knew what he wanted, knew that he didn't truly care an ounce for her mental trauma. Fudge wanted a statement, or a story, or an article that he could publish to save face for the Ministry concerning everything that had to do with Lucius Malfoy.

And she simply did not want to give that to him. But she also knew that allowing him to remain in the castle could do terrors to the school and its inhabitants.

So she decided on the lesser of two evils. "Okay," she said quietly.

McGonagall did not look astonished, as many people might have. She nodded her head in acceptance and stood, presumably to inform Dumbledore or Fudge of her decision.

She couldn't think. If she started to think, then she wouldn't be able to do what she intended to do, wouldn't be able to properly execute it. She needed to keep her mind empty, or at least keep her attentions diverted from the topic that the Minister wanted to discuss.

Grasping on to the power-hungry, urgent needs of the wind was not easy to do when one lacked the proper instruction, the proper experience to manage it correctly. And she did not fool herself long enough – even for a moment – to think that she would master it so quickly, with only a short revelation to support her acclaim. But even so, she also knew that the wind – powerful as it was – could maintain her focus at _least_ long enough to endure an impromptu conversation with the Minister.

And hopefully she would manage it without have some severe mental or emotional breakdown.

_Although it would serve him right to witness it_, Hermione thought with a small amount of contempt.

Determined, now, Hermione's hands clenched the blanket around her and dispelled of it. If she were to meet Fudge, she would meet with him on her terms, in her niche. She would not lose an ounce of ground to him, not now, not when she finally felt some semblance of control over her emotions.

And that had been exactly what she'd been looking for, for the past month or more. She didn't think that – poorly trained as she was – she could manage to retreat into her Element seamlessly, and manage to maintain her emotionless front throughout the whole of the conversation, but she hoped that it would at least save her, during the worst moments, from breaking into unchecked sobs.

So she stood, and made a hasty decision to change her clothing. She was meeting the Minister of Magic – the whole five feet six inches of him, bound into an overly-portly belly, topped with grubby, money-greased palms – and despite his apparent lack of regard for human feelings, he was still a political hound, albeit a bad one. It would not due to meet him in her muggle jeans and sweater.

After she'd dressed properly, she tinkered with her hair for a moment, and then decided that she would leave it down, messy as it was. She could have thrown it up and bound it back with a hair tie, could have styled it into a smooth, elegant bun – both options would take but a small moment to execute – but she intentionally left it down.

She couldn't pin down why she felt it was better left alone, couldn't lay a finger on why she felt it was so important that Fudge be given _just_ the right impression of her recovery – false as the impression she was giving him might have been.

Abruptly realizing that she lacked any other plans for preparation, she gnawed on her lip impatiently, worriedly, and set to make a cup of tea. She didn't think it would settle her nerves, but it would give her something to do with her hands, and right now she needed that.

The knock at her portrait startled her, and her hand shook violently as she poured the tea into a cup.

_Come on, Granger, if you're going to do this, you'd best do it right!_ She snarled at herself, swiftly mopping up the slight mess with a towel, which she tossed back under the cupboard. As a last minute thought, she stole the energy sphere from her nightstand and tucked it carefully into her pocket. She didn't know if it would be any use in her practice as an Element, but it was worth a try.

She hurried to the portrait and opened it, careful that she didn't allow the immediate disparagement that she mentally scorned this man with to show on her countenance. When the portrait fell open at her command, she noted immediately that Fudge was flanked not only by Professor McGonagall, but by the Professors Dumbledore, Snape, and West, as well.

"Minister," she murmured bleakly, finding it a near impossible task to keep a respectful tone, or even a neutral one.

"Good evening, Miss Granger," he swallowed roughly, and she wondered, very briefly, what he must have thought of her. It wasn't that his opinion really counted – because it didn't – but just _once_ she'd like to know what an outsider thought of her scars, of her toffee-colored but utterly broken eyes. "It's a pleasure to speak with you."

He offered her his hand, which she shied away from. That part had not been faked; it was a genuine fear, now so deeply ingrained into her system that she could scarcely remember the time when she could distribute and take pleasure in a simple hug, or an affectionate pat on the shoulder. She felt so utterly starved for human contact, yet still so utterly terrified of it.

It was an awkward moment when he realized that she would not, could not take his hand, and it seemed that it had taken a sharp stab from Snape's wand in his back to make him realize it. Fudge glared at the foreboding man behind him, until Snape sneered and nudged him to the side. "Miss Granger, might we come in?" He uttered it ironically, bordering on sarcasm, but she could not bring herself to feel the usual bite, and she was sure that – for whatever reason – his tone had been meticulously softened of his own volition, and for her favor.

Hermione stood to the side and watched her teachers file into her quarters, creating a would-be comical scene, had her back and shoulders not been so tense, and the situation quite so stressful.

But despite the tension and the tight, short breaths that were quickening in pace, she could not help but feel that her most recent bout of unconsciousness had, in the long run, helped her far more than it hurt her. She was, at this point, very well accustomed to the panic attacks, but it helped to know that, when the current situation became too much for her emotional capacity to handle, she could momentarily – at the very least – lose herself to a power much greater and far more monumental than she.

"Please," she said quickly, realizing that she had lost herself to her thoughts for a moment too long, "feel free to sit."

Dumbledore did, and Fudge clearly had no problem taking the liberty of doing so. McGonagall remained steadfastly at her side, which Hermione, for once, found more comforting than nerve-wracking, while Snape and Garret had taken to hovering rather obtrusively and – dare she say it – _protectively_ over Fudge, as if offering a silent warning.

A warning of what, Hermione couldn't imagine, didn't _want_ to imagine. And why Snape took it upon himself to take up residence as her temporary guardian, Hermione couldn't have said, but it wasn't all that unpleasant. In fact, she found herself fighting a wave of distinct gratitude for both men.

"Miss Granger – Hermione, if I may?" He ploughed forward without waiting for her say-so, not that she'd have given it anyway. She wasn't comfortable with the way he ground out her first name, and the loss of formalities momentarily threw off her already-hard-to-keep mask. "Shall we be blunt?"

She regarded him with a minute amount of distaste, tinged with a bundle of fear and nerves that she couldn't mask, no matter how hard she tried. But she gave him a small nod.

Hermione could feel McGonagall's curiosity radiating off of her in waves. She knew that she was behaving oddly – or at least, much differently than she had for the past two months or so – but she needed McGonagall and the others to play into it, otherwise it simply would not work.

"Recent… events," Fudge cleared his throat, "have made it difficult for us to have this chat a bit sooner."

"Aye, recent events and an outright dislike of your purpose here to begin with," West snarled viciously.

Clearly this was a touchy subject for all inhabitants of the room, and not simply her.

Fudge ignored him, with a great deal of apparent difficulty, and Hermione could see Snape lean forward even the minutest amount possible, as if offering a silent threat trundled together with a blatant hatred.

"Continue, please, Minister," Dumbledore urged.

Hermione could swear that he'd done it intentionally to irk Fudge, but she couldn't be entirely sure.

"I'll get right to it, then, shall I?" He sighed impatiently, glancing with pompous self-importance at the men flanking his either side. "It would be in… _everyone's_ best interest if you felt yourself… capable of relaying this summer's past events. In order to assist our resistance efforts, of course," he hastened to add.

She didn't say anything. In fact – despite how ready she'd been for sentiments of this kind – she felt the panic hovering in a foreign corner of her mind as her breath caught and her heart raced in her ears.

_Wind_, she thought desperately, and attempted to take hold of the _thing_ inside of her that seemed so determined, so dead-set on controlling the very _being_ of the wind.

She closed her eyes briefly, not caring that she might have looked a bit strange, not caring what Fudge thought of the odd display. And on some level, she registered that he probably wasn't meant to know of her ability, and she certainly had no inclination to explain it to him.

Her fingers lightly traced patterns on the sphere in her pocket as her breathing picked up and she began to fear tremendously that her plan – as quickly decided as it was – would not work. Her throat began to close, and she tried to a dreadful extreme to hone her attentions on what was happening inside of her body, instead of what was happening _to_ it. And a moment before she gave up, when black pricks had started to assail her eyes, she felt the smallest tinge of recognition.

She had control, however brief it was. This was nothing compared to the way that it would feel when she had worked for the power, but it would do. It would do, as long as she could push that small patch of air into her lungs, and calm her long enough to finish what she'd started.

After she'd done so, she took a small moment to gloat to herself before she lifted her eyelids again. The array of faces that she was met with startled her.

Fudge appeared stricken, McGonagall worried, Dumbledore sad, West proud (to her utmost pleasure), and Snape – well, he just looked like he understood, odd as that sounded, but there was no mistaking the curious glint in his black eyes, the tiniest ounce of compassion that nested in them.

"Forgive my impertinence, Minister," she said quietly, controlling the tremor in her voice only just, and failing to do so with the tremors in her hands, "but I must ask if that's truly relevant to… _your_ purposes."

Stammering at the request to justify his intentions, he sputtered, "Of – of course it's relevant, girl! We must know what weapons You-Know-Who has implemented against us, and we – "

"Then ask… _Malfoy_ yourself," she fought a gasp and a shudder after uttering his name. "What he did – the 'weapons' he used on me were… entirely orthodox," she whispered, twisting her hands together nervously, unable to still them, yet unable to look at them without falling into another bout of terror. "As far as weapons run, anyway."

"But – but – "

"I believe, Cornelius, that Miss Granger has made herself crystalline clear," Dumbledore uttered softly. Despite the fact that his words were not aimed at Hermione, an unsubtle layer of sympathy coated them, and that, she knew, was directed straight at her.

"Forgive me if I'm not overly keen on having an article printed in the _Prophet_, come morning," Hermione spoke in a dangerously low voice, having forced herself to regain at least _some_ of her bearings. "Your motivations for coming her are abundantly clear, Minister, and you'll excuse me if I'm not open to forgiving the Ministry's past indiscretions. Your policy toward… well, toward _everything_ is intolerable at its best, but you've carried your office to an unprecedented point of inconceivable corruption, and I refuse to play into that. Now, if you haven't anything else to say, Minister, get the hell out of my quarters."

It had been inappropriate to say, and she suddenly felt very drained and confused. The plan had been to steer him away from prying, certainly, but she had hoped to use coldness, indifference to achieve her goal, not impudence and a show of total disrespect.

But the latter had been much more refreshing.


End file.
